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REMINISCENCES 



OP 




ONGRESS. 



BY 



CHARLES W. MARCH. 



\\ 




NEW YORK: 
BAKER AND SCRIBNER, 

145 NASSAU STREET AND 36 PARK ROW. 

1850. 



■ ■ ■ ■■-■ f ll. 



c;... 340 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 185!), by 
BAKER AND SCRIBNER, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Southern District of New York. 



0. W. BENEDICT, 
Slercotyper and Printer, 
201 William st. 



PREFACE. 



It was the original design of the author to have given a 
series of descriptive sketches of scenes and persons in 
Congress, unconnected with any antecedents or relations of 
the individuals introduced ; but, finding on examination of 
what had been written that Mr. Webster formed the prin- 
cipal figure in each efibrt of his pen, he concluded to give 
the book a more personal character, and make it an 
approximation to a biography. This change of design will 
be detected in any, the most cursory, glance at the book ; 
there being a want of congruity or unity too easily dis- 
cernible throughout. 

The writer need not say that he has not attempted a 
complete biography. It is diflScult, if not absolutely im- 
possible, to write the life of the living. It is not merely 
that friendship would be too partial, or enmity too censorious, 



IV PREFACE. 

to present a true estimate of the character and conduct of 
the person illustrated — the difficulty in obtaining correct 
information is greater during the life of a person, para- 
doxical as it may seem, than after his decease. When one 
eminent in life has gone down to the grave, numbers come 
forward with ambitious haste, some with letters, some with 
anecdotes, some with facts illustrative of the character 
and pursuits of the deceased, and of their relationship to 
him. The grief we feel at the departure of a distinguished 
friend is greatly mitigated by the public sympathy with our 
loss, and we hasten to give that sympathy a proper direction. 

Besides, of what we gain as authentic, we are obliged 
to suppress a part ; if not from regard to the feelings of 
the person, who is the subject of our memoir, yet from 
regard to the feelings of others whose relations with him 
might be affected unfavorably through our indiscreetness. 
There are many things told, in the intimacy of friendship, 
in the abandon of social intercourse, that it would be grossly 
reprehensible as well as indelicate to give publicity to. 

The earlier part of Mr. Webster's life, rapidly sketched, 
it was thought, would lend new interest to his public career ; 
— we like to trace greatness, if possible, to its seminal 
principle, and dwell upon its gradual development. The 
writer of these pages might have given a fuller account of 
this part of Mr. Webster's life, had he not been restrained 



PREFACE. 



by the fear of subjecting himself to a suspicion of having 
made too liberal use of the opportunities of private friend- 
ship. What has been given he hopes will prove not un- 
interesting. 

New York, July ISth^ 1850. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Paqb 

Birthplace of Daniel "Webster — His Early Studies — Admission to 
the Bar, and Practice. ..... 1 

CHAPTER H. 

Entrance into Congress — Maiden Speech — His Associates — Mr. 
Clay, Mr. Calhoun — His Argument in the Dartmouth College 
Case. ..... . . 31 

CHAPTER HI. 

Removal to Boston — Return to Congress — Speeches on the Greek 
and Panama Questions. ..... 59 

CHAPTER IV. 

Introduction to the " Hayne Controversy" — Description of Parties 
thereto. . ...... 84 

CHAPTER V. 
First Speech in Reply to Hayne — Col. Hayne's Retort. . 107 

CHAPTER VI. 
Second Speech in Reply to Hayne — ^Descriptive Narrative thereof 129 



Ylii ' CONTENTS. 

Page 
CHAPTER VII. 

Continuation of the Hayne Debate— The General Opinion of Mr. 
Webster's Effort— Its Merit as Contrasted with other Speeches. 152 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Murder of Joseph White in Salem, Mass.— Mr. Webster's Argument. 170 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Nullification Controversy. .... 181 

CHAPTER X. 

Various Speeches upon the Subject, . • • .201 

CHAPTER XI. 
Speech of Mr Calhoun— Reply of Mr. Webster. . . 224 

CHAPTER XII. 
Mr. Webster's Visit to the West — His Speeches on the Occasion 244 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Kemoval of the Deposites — Gen. Jackson's Protest — Mr. Webster's 
Reply. ........ 264 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



CHAPTER I. 

Daniel Webster was born on the IStli day of January, 
1782, in the town of Salisbury, New Hampshire. His earliest 
ancestor, of whom the family has any certain knowledge, was 
Thomas Webster. He was settled in Hampton as early as 
1636. The descent from him to Daniel Webster can be 
found recorded in the Church and Town Records of Hamp- 
ton, Kingston, (now East Kingston) and Salisbury. 

The family came originally from Scotland, two centuries 
ago and more. It is probable, however, from certain circum- 
stances, that they tarried in England awhile, before emigrat- 
ing to a new world. They did not bring over with them all 
the distinguishing peculiarities of their counti^men ; the 
Scottish accent had become a mere tradition, in the time of 
Mr. Webster's father's father. The personal characteristics 
of the family are strongly marked : light complexions, sandy- 
hair in great profusion, bushy eyebrows, and slender rather 
than broad frames attest the Teutonic and common origin of 

the race Dr, Noah Webster,— the compiler of the Diction- 

•1 



^ CHAPTER I. 

ary, — was, in personal appearance, the vera effigies of the 
family. 

The uncles of Daniel Webster had the same characteristics. 
They were fair-haired, and of rather slender form. His father, 
however, was of a different physical organization. No two per- 
sons could look like each other less than Ezekiel Webster — 
the father of Daniel — and either of his brothers. They re- 
sembled their father, who had the hereditary features and 
form ; but Ezekiel Webster had the black hair, eyes, and 
complexion of his mother, whose maiden name was Bachelder. 
She was a descendant of the Rev. Stephen Bachelder, a 
man famous in his time, in the County of Rockingham, and 
towns circumjacent. There are many persons now alive in 
Kingston, who will tell you they have heard their fathers say, 
she was a woman of uncommon strength of character, and 
sterling sense. Daniel and his only brother of the whole 
blood, Ezekiel, alone of the five sons of Ezekiel Webster, had 
the Bachelder complexion ; the others ran off into the general 
characteristics of the race. 

Many persons in Kingston and Salisbury still live who re- 
collect Ebgnezer Webster well. They say his personal ap- 
pearance was striking. He was tall and erect ; six feet in 
height ; of a stalwart form, broad and full in the chest. His 
complexion was swarthy, features large and prominent : with 
a Roman nose, and eyes of a remarkable brilliancy. He had 
a military air and carriage, — the result, perhaps, of his service 
in the army. He enlisted, early in life, as a common soldier 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



in the Provincial troops, and during the war of '56 served 
under Gen. Amherst, on the north-western frontier ; ac- 
companying that commander in the invasion of Canada. He 
attracted the attention and secured the good-will of his su- 
perior officers, by his faithful and gallant conduct ; and before 
the close of the war, rose from the ranks to a captaincy. 
Peace between England and France soon following the capture 
of Quebec and conquest of Canada, the Provincial troops were 
disbanded, and returned to their homes. 

Previous to the year 1763, the settlements in New Hamp- 
shire had made little or no progress towards the interior of the 
State, for more than half a century. The fitful irruptions of 
the French from Canada and the more constant if not more 
cruel assaults of their subsidized allies — the Indians — repressed 
any movement inward, into the country. To defend what 
they held, by a kind of cordon militaire of block-houses, was 
all the frontier-men hoped. 

The session of Canada, however, to England, by the Treaty 
of Paris in 1763, removing the great obstacle to farther pro- 
gress into the interior, the royal Grovernor of New Hampshire, 
Benning Wentworth, began to make grants of townships 
in the central part of the State. Col. Stevens with some other 
persons about Kingston, — mostly retired soldiers, — obtained a 
grant of the township of Salisbury, then called, from the prin- 
cipal grantee, Stevens'-town. This town is situated exactly 
at the head-waters of the Merrimac River : which river is 
formed by the confluence of the Pemigiwasset and Winni- 



4 CHAPTER I. 

piseogee. Under tliis grant, Ebenezer Webster obtained a lot 
situate in the north part of the town. More adventurous than 
others of the company who obtained grants, he cut his way 
deeper into the wilderness, making the road he could not find. 
Here, in 1764, he built a log-cabin and lighted his fire. 
" The smoke of which," his son has since said on some public 
occasion, " ascended nearer the North Star than that of any 
of his majesty's New England subjects." His nearest civi- 
lized neighbor in the North was at Montreal, hundreds of 
miles off. 

His first wife dying soon after his settlement at Salisbury, 
Ebenezer Webster married Abigail Eastman of Salisbury, 
a lady of Welsh extraction. She was the mother of 
Daniel and Ezekiel ; and, like the mother of George Canning, 
was a woman of far more than ordinary intellect. She was 
proud of, and ambitious for her sons ; and the distinction 
they both afterwards achieved, may have been, in part, 
at least, the result of her promptings. The mother knows 
better than any one the mollia tempora fandi. She knows 
what are words in season ; when the mind is most ductile, 
and most capable of impressions intended to be permanent. 
If from our fathers we gain hardihood, mental or physical, 
and worldly wisdom, in all its variety, it is our mother, with 
her earnest, devoted, life-long love, that stimulates into healthy 
activity, whatever of good lies dormant in the heart ; in- 
spiring us to seek, if not for our own sake, for hers, honor- 
able position, and an uneipalled name. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 5 

Ebenezer Webster commemorated his second marriage, by 
the erection of a frame-house, hard by the log cabin. He dug 
a well near it, and planted an elm sapling. In this house, the 
subject of our memoir was born. The house has long since 
disappeared, from roof to foundation-stone. Nothing indi- 
cates its sometime existence but a cellar mostly filled up by 
stone and earth. But the well still remains, with water as 
pure, as cool, as limpid, as when first turned to the light : and 
will remain, in all probability, for ages, to refresh hereafter 
the votaries of genius, who make their pilgrimage hither to 
visit the cradle of one of her greatest sons. The elm that 
shaded the boy still flourishes in vigorous leaf, and may have 
an existence beyond its perishable nature. Like " the witch- 
elm that guards St. Fillan's Spring," it may live in story, long 
after leaf, and branch, and root have disappeared for ever. 

It is a belief, I suspect almost universal, that natural 
scenery has great power over the development of character, 
moral and intellectual. That upon the impressionable mind 
of infancy, scenes, whether remarkable for traditionary inte- 
rest, sublimity, ruggedness, or loveliness, stamp sensations 
of an indelible character ; awaken, if they do not create, 
the poetic faculty. Burns, Byron, Burke, and Scott, are 
claimed by their several biographers as conclusive illustrations 
of the influence, picturesque nature exercises over the imagi- 
nation and heart. The countless treasures of fancy and 
beauty, the high and solemn thoughts, the poetic fervor and 
luxuriant imagination which characterise, in a greater or less 



CHAPTER I. 



degree, the productions of tliese extraordinary men may 
have been suggested, or at least fully developed, by the 
striking features of the scenery, in the midst of which their 
earlier days were passed. The romantic localities of Ayr, 
the wild and picturesque scenery of the Highlands near Balla- 
trech, the rich, deep, and gorgeous views near by the old 
castle of Kilcolman — once the favorite residence of the poet 
Spenser — and the vicinity of Sandy Knowe, with its crags 
and cliffs, its ruined towers, and " mountains lone," severally 
the residences in early youth of Burns, Byron, Burke and 
Scott, may have given rise to feelings, which, increasing with 
earnest nourishment, till they became irrepressible from indul- 
gence, found suitable expression afterwards in beautiful and 
nervous diction ; in heroic verse, or glowing prose. 

There is little softness or subdued expression in the features 
of the landscape round about Mr. Webster's birth-place. 
The bleak, harsh, stern hills, among which his cradle hung 
high in the air, like the eyrie of an eagle, are all untamed, 
untameable. But in their sadness, and deep but not voice- 
less solemnity, they are suggestive of lonely musings and 
thoughts original and lofty as themselves. They feed the 
hungry mind with images noble, elevated, and partaking of 
their own immortality. The laboring clouds in their vague 
career, often rested on the summits of these hills, covering 
them over as with a garment, so that they presented at times 
to the belated traveller of the valleys, the appearance of tur- 
baned giants. Their scarred faces attested the violence of 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 7 

the tempests that ranged arouud them, and beat upon them. 
In winter, which lasted half the year, snows of a prodigious 
and dangerous depth covered the ground, obliterating every 
landmark, and giving to all nature an aspect of desolate sub- 
limity. While, sometimes, in spring, a sudden and vast thaw 
would unloosen the embrace with which the snows held on to 
the mountains, and precipitate them in fearful volume, with 
the force and rush of the avalanche, into the valleys below ; 
making of quiet streams mighty rivers, dangerous to ford or 
even approach ; the crash of the pines in the woods, as they 
were borne to the earth by the superincumbent mass of snow, 
performing fit accompaniment to the scene. 

In Mr. Webster's earliest youth an occurrence of such a na- 
ture took place, which aiFected him deeply at the time, and 
has dwelt in his memory ever since. There was a sudden and 
extraordinary rise in the Merimac River, in a spring thaw. A 
deluge of rain for two whole daj^s poured down upon the houses. 
A mass of mingled water and snow rushed madly from the hills, 
inundating the fields far and wide. The highways were broken 
up, and rendered undistinguishable. There was no way for 
neighbors to interchange visits of condolence or necessity, 
save by boats, which came up to the very door-steps of the 
houses. 

Many things of value were swept away, even things of bulk. 
A large barn, full fifty feet by twenty, crowded with hay and 
grain, sheep, chickens and turkeys, sailed majestically down the 
river, before the eyes of the astonished inhabitants ; who, no 



8 CHAPTER I. 

little frightened, got ready to fly to the mountains, or construct 
another Ark. 

The roar of waters, as they rushed over precipices, casting 
the foam and spray far above, the crashing of the forest-trees 
as the storm broke through them, the immense sea everywhere 
in range of the eye, the sublimity, even danger of the scene, 
made an indelible impression upon the mind of the youthful 
observer. 

Occurrences and scenes like these excite the imaginative 
faculty, furnish material for proper thought, call into existence 
new emotions, give decision to character, and a purpose to ac- 
tion. 

It was the great desire of Ebenezer ^yebster to give his 
children an education. A man of strong powers of mind 
and much practical knowledge himself, he still had felt deeply 
and often the want of early education, and wished to spare his 
sons the mortification he had experienced. The schoolmaster 
then was not abroad, at least had not visited Salisbury in his 
travels. Small town-schools there were, it is true, and persons 
superintending them called teachers — lucus a nan lucendo. 
But these schools were not open half the year, and the school- 
masters had no claim to the position but their incapacity for 
anything else. Their qualification was their want of qualifica- 
tion. Reading and writing were all they professed, and more 
than they were able, to teach. 

The school was migratory. When it was in the neighbor- 
hood of the Webster residence, it was easy to attend ; but 



DANIEL WEBSTER 9 

wlien it was removed into anotlier part of tlie town, or another 
town, as was often the case, it was somewhat difficult. While 
Mr, Webster was quite young, he was daily sent two miles and 
a half or three miles to school, and, in the midst of winter, on 
foot. For carriages or carriage-roads then " were not ;" and, 
with the exception of an occasional ride on horseback, he 
walked daily to school and back. If the school moved yet 
farther off, into a town not contiguous, his father boarded him 
out in a neighboring family. He was better provided with op- 
portunities for obtaining whatever of instruction these schools 
could impart than his elder brothers, partly because he evinced 
early an irrepressible thirst for study and information, and 
partly because his father thought that his constitution was 
slender and somewhat frail — too much so for any robust occu- 
pation. But Joe, his elder half-brother, who was somewhat 
of a wag, used to say that " Dan was sent to school, in order 
that he might know as much as the other boys." 

Mr. Webster had no sooner learnt to read, than he showed 
great eagerness for books. He devoured all he could lay hands 
upon. When he was unable to obtain new ones, he read the 
old ones over and over, till he had committed most of their 
contents to memory. Books were then (as Dr. Johnson said 
on some occasion) " like bread in a besieged town ; every man 
might get a mouthful, but none a full meal." What were ob- 
tained, were husbanded with care. Owing chiefly to the exer- 
tions of Mr. Thompson, (the lawyer of the place,) of the cler- 
gyman, and Mr. Webster's father, a very small circulating li- 
1* 



10 CHAPTER I. 

brary was purchased. These institutions about this time re- 
ceived an impetus from the zeal and labors of Dr. Belknap, 
the celebrated historian of New Hampshire. 

Among the few books of the library, I have heard Mr. 
Webster say, he found the Spectator, and that he remembers 
turning over the leaves of x\ddison's Criticism upon Chevy 
Chase, for the sake of reading, connectedly, the ballad, the 
verses of which Addison quotes from time to time, as subjects 
of remark. " As Dr. Johnson said, in another case, the poet 
was read, and the critic neglected. I could not understand 
why it was necessary that the author of the Spectator should 
take so great pains to prove that Chevy Chase was a good 
story." 

The simple, but sublime story of Che\^ Chase, would be no 
indifferent test for the discovery of how much or how little of 
the poetic faculty there might be in an individual. None but 
those who had some poetic fervor could appreciate or even un- 
derstand it : while those who felt its pathos, its beauty and 
grandeur most, needs must have the deepest sensibilities. A 
distinguished literary character has said that he would have 
been prouder to have been its author than of all the productions 
from which he derived his fame. Su- Philip Sydney said he 
never read it but his heart was stirred within him as at the 
sound of a trumpet. 

Mr. Webster was early very fond of poetry. He was not 
satisfied with reading it merely, but committed a great deal to 
memory. The whole Essay on Man he could recite verbatim 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 11 

before lie was fourteen years old. A habit of attentive exclusive 
devotion to the subject before him, aided by a wonderful 
memory, fixed everything deeply in his mind. It is this art, 
or talent, or genius, that works the miracles we read and be- 
hold. He had a great taste, too, for devotional poetry : Watts' 
Psalms and Hymns he committed to memory, not as a re- 
ligious task, but as a pleasure. Nor was he less fond of, or 
less acquainted with, the sublime poetry of the Bible. Evi- 
dence of this is found everywhere in his works : for there is 
scarcely a speech or production of his that does not contain 
ideas or expressions, the types of which may be found in that 
book. 

When he had attained his foui'teenth year, his father took 
an important and decisive step with him. On the 25th day 
of May, 1796, Ebenezer Webster mounted his horse, put his 
son on another and proceeded with him to Exeter. He there 
placed him in Phillip's academy, then under the care of Dr. 
Benjamin Abbot, its well-known and respected President. 
The change was very great to a boy, who had never been from 
home before, and who now found himself among some ninety 
other boys, — a stranger among strangers, — all of whom had 
probably seen more of the world, and assumed to know so 
much more of it, than himself. But he was not long In re- 
concilino; himself to the chang-e, and to his new duties. He 
was immediately put to English grammar, writing and arith- 
metic. A class-mate of his has informed me that he mastered 
the principles and philosophy of the first, between May and 



12 CHAPTRR I. 

October of that year ; and that in the other studies he made 
respectable progress ; in the autumn he commenced the study 
of the Latin language ; his first exercises in which were re- 
cited to Joseph Stevens Buckminster, who was acting (in 
some college vacation, I think) as assistant to Pr. Abbott. 

It may appear somewhat singular that the greatest orator 
of modern times should have evinced in his boyhood the 
strongest antipathy to public declamation. This fact, however, 
is established by his own words, which have recently appeared 
in print. '' I believe," says Mr. Webster, " I made tolerable 
progress in most branches, which I attended to, while in this 
school ; but there was one thing I could not do. I could not 
make a declamation. I could not speak before the school. 
The kind and excellent Buckminster sought especially to per- 
suade me to perform the exercise of declamation, like other 
boys, but I could not do it. Many a piece did I commit to 
memory, and recite and rehearse in my own room, over and 
over again ; yet when the day came, when the school collected 
to hear declamations, when my name was called, and I saw 
all eyes turned to my seat, I could not raise myself from it. 
Sometimes the instructors frowned, sometimes they smiled. 
Mr. Buckminster always pressed and entreated, most winning- 
ly, that I would venture. But I never could command suf- 
ficient resolution." Such diffidence of its own powers may be 
natural to genius, nervously fearful of being unable to reach 
that ideal which it proposes as the only full consummation of 
its wishes. It is fortunate, however, for the age, fortunate for 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 13 

all ages, that Mr. "Webster by determined will and frequent 
trial overcame this moral incapacity — as liis great prototype, 
the Grecian orator, subdued his physical defect. 

He remained at the Exeter academy but a few months ; 
accomplishing in these few months, however, the work of years 
to some. In February, 1797, his father placed him under 
the tuition of the Rev. Samuel Woods, in Boscawen ; of whom 
his pupil always speaks in terms of affection and respect. He 
boarded in his family ; and I have heard him say that Mr. 
"Woods' whole charge for instruction, board, &c., was lut one 
dollar per week. We pay much dearer now for much less. 

It was on their way to the house of Mr, W^oods that his 
father first opened to him his design of sending him to college 
— a purpose that seemed to him impossible to be fulfilled. It 
was so much more extravao-ant than his most extravao-ant 
hopes. It had never entertained his mind a moment, A col- 
legiate education in those days was something of far greater 
importance than in these, when the ability to command it is 
so general. It made a marked man of thousands. It gave 
the fortunate graduate at once position and influence ; and, if 
not genius, or eminent ability, supplied or concealed the want 
thereof. The alumnus surveyed life from an eminence, and 
could aspire to its chiefest honors by a kind of prescriptive 
right. 

Most grateful to his father for the prospect held out through 
his self-sacrificing devotion, Mr. W^ebster applied himself to 
his studies with even increased ardor. All that Mr. W^oods 



14 CHAPTER I. 

could teacli he learnt. Among otlier books, he read Vh-gil 
and Cicero, both of whom he faithfully studied, the latter he 
warmly admired. Of the Latin classics, I presume, there is 
not one so familiarly known to Mr. Webster as Cicero. It 
may seem a little strange, indeed, that with all his early, eager, 
and constant study of Rome's greatest orator, he should not 
have imitated unconsciously his manner of expression or 
thought. He much more resembles Demosthenes, in vigor 
and terseness of expression, and in copious vehemence ; whose 
works, in the meanwhile, he never so completely mastered. 

At Boscawen, Mr. Webster was fortunate to find another 
circulating library, the volumes of which he fully appreciated. 
It was in this library, he met, for the first time, Don Quixote, 
in English. " I began to read it," (I have heard him say,) 
'' and it is literally true that I never closed my eyes till I had 
finished it ; nor did I lay it down any thne for five minutes ; 
so great was the power of this extraordinary book on my 
imao;ination." 

In the summer of this year, August, 1797, he entered 
Dartmouth College, as a freshman. 

His college life, it can be easily believed, was not an idle 
one. With such a desire for the acquisition of all kinds of 
knowledge, the danger to be apprehended was, he would un- 
dertake too much rather than too little ; that his reading 
would be too miscellaneous, and that he would acquire, there- 
from, habits of mental carelessness. From the testimony of 
his intimates in college, it is known that he road constantly. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 15 

Besides a regular attention to the prescribed studies of his 
class, he devoted himself to the acquisition of whatever was 
useful in English history, or graceful and becoming in English 
literature. He superintended also the publication of a little 
weekly newspaper, making selections for it from books and 
periodicals, and contributing, occasionally, an editorial of his 
own. These were, perhaps, the first of his productions ever 
published. I know not if they are to be met with now. He 
delivered some addresses while in college, before literary so- 
cieties, which also were published. 

Ezokiel Webster — the sole brother of Daniel of the whole 
blood — was destined by his father to remain at home and 
carry on the farm. But he had aspirations beyond this, and 
so had his brother for him. Accordingly, when Daniel re- 
turned home on a visit in his sophomore year, in the spring of 
'99, he held serious consultation with his brother Ezekiel, in 
relation to his wishes. It was resolved between them, that 
Ezekiel too should go to college, and that Daniel should be 
the organ of communication with their father on the subject. 
He lost no time in opening the negotiation, and experienced 
no great difficulty in obtaining the consent of his father, who 
lived only for his children, to their design. The result was 
that in about ten days, Mr. Webster had gone back to college, 
having first seen his brother bid adieu to the farm, and place 
himself in school under a teacher in Latin. Soon afterwards 
Ezekiel went to Mr. Woods, and remained with him till he 



16 CHAPTER I. 

was fitted for college. In March, 1801, his father carried 
him to college, where he joined the Freshman class. 

He had not great quickness of apprehension nor vivacity of 
intellect, and was not therefore early estimated at his full 
value. But he had a strong mind, great powers of observa- 
tion, and memory. He acquired slowly but safely. Not 
fluent of speech, he was correct always in language and 
thought. Few excelled him in clearness or vigor of style, 
none in argumentative ability. He wanted but opportunity to 
have been a great man. 

He fell dead, while arguing a cause in Concord, New Hamp- 
shire, in 1829. A handsome monument was erected to his 
memory in Boscawen, where he was buried. 

Mr. Webster, while in college, during the winter vacations, 
kept school, to pay the collegiate expenses of his brother as 
well as his own. Being graduated in August, 1801, he 
immediately entered Mr. Thompson's office in Salisbury, as a 
student of law, and remained there till January following. 
The res angusta domi seemed then to require that he should 
go somewhere and do something to earn a little money. An ap- 
plication was at this time made to him from Fryeburg, Maine, to 
take charge of a school there. He accepted the offer, mount- 
ed his horse, and commenced his labors on reaching Fryeburg. 
His salary was $350 per annum, all of which he saved ; as he 
made besides a sum sufficient to pay his board and other 
necessary expenses, by acting as assistant to the Register of 
Deeds for the County, to whose chirography there was the one 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 17 

objection of illegibility. The ache is not yet out of his fingers 
— I have heard Mr. Webster say — which so much writing 
caused them. 

In Fryebiirg, he found also a circulating library, which he 
ran throusrh. Here he borrowed and read for the first time 
Blackstone's Commentaries. Among other mental exercises, 
he committed to memory Mr. Ames' celebrated speech on the 
British Treaty. 

In September, 1802, he returned to Mr. Thompson's office, 
in which he remained till February, 1804. Mr. Thompson 
was an excellent man and a respectable lawyer ; but he did 
not understand how to make the study of the law either agree- 
able or instructive. He put his students to study after the 
old fashion, that is, the hardest books first. Coke's Littleton 
was the book in those days upon which pupils were broken in, 
— which is like teaching arithmetic, by beginning with difer- 
ential calculus. "A boy of twenty," says Mr. Webster, 
" with no previous knowledge on such subjects cannot under- 
stand Coke. It is folly to set him upon such an author. 
There are propositions in Coke so abstract, and distinctions 
so -nice, and doctrines embracing so many conditions and 
qualifications, that it requires an efibrt not only of a mature 
mind, but of a mind both strong and mature, to understand 
him. Why disgust and discourage a boy by telling him he 
must break through into his profession through such a wall 
as this .?" 

Mr. Webster soon laid aside Coke till " a more convenient 



18 CHAPTER I. 

season," and, in the meanwhile, took up other more plain, 
easy, and intelligible authors. 

While not engaged in the study of the law, he occupied 
himself with the Latin classics. He added greatly to what 
acquisitions he had made in the language, while in college 
reading Sallust, Caesar, and Horace. Some odes of the latter, 
which he translated into English, were published. 

But books were not at this time of his life, as they never 
have been, Mr. Webster's sole study. He then was fond, and 
has been through life, of the manly field sports, — fishing, 
shooting and riding. These brought him into near communion 
with Nature and himself; supplied him with the material and 
opportunity for thought ; made him contemplative, logical 
and earnest. At a subsequent period of his life, he found 
that the solitary rides he was wont to indulge in afibrded him 
many an edifying day. The great argument in the Dartmouth 
College case was principally arranged in a tour he made from 
Boston to Barnstable and back. John Adams' speech before 
the Philadelphia Convention in '76, was composed by Mr. 
Webster, while takino; a drive in a New Eno;land chaise. His 
favorite sport of angling gave him many a favorable opportunity 
for composition. The address for Bunker Hill (for instance) 
was all planned out even to many of its best passages, in 
Marskpee Brook-* the orator catching trout and elaborating 
sentences, at the same time. 

* It is said — I know not upon what authority — that as the orator 
drew in some trout particularly large, he w^as heard to exclaim : " Ven- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 19 

A like fondness for solitary rambles and sequestered spots, 
is said to have characterized Canning and Burke ; who found 
their fancies brighten and their philosophy invigorated by this 
self-communion. With them, as with the Roman Lawgiver, 
Eferia, avoiding crowds and bustling life, was to be met with 
only in solitude. So true is it that the intellectual man is 
never less alone than when alone ; that to him his mind a 
kingdom is, and his own thoughts his most agreeable and in- 
structive companions. 

In July, 1804, Mr. AVebster went to Boston, and, after 
some unsuccessful applications elsewhere, obtained admission 
as a student in the office of the Hon. Christopher Gore, who 
had then just returned from England, and resumed the prac- 
tice of law. It was a most fortunate event for IMr. Web- 
ster. 3Ir. Gore was no less distinguished as a lawyer, than as 
a statesman and publicist, — eminent in each character, — and 
was besides one of the rare examples of the highest intellectual 
qualities united with sound, practical, keen common sense. 
He knew mankind no less than books ; and the wisdom he de- 
rived from the study of both, he could impart, in most impres- 
sive language. With him Mr. Webster enjoyed the best op- 
erable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. 
Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold 
this joyous day." As these identical sentences appeared afterwards in 
the Bunker-Hill Address, it would seem as if there w^as some plausibility 
for the story. At least, one can say with the Italian,— Si non e vero, e 
bene trovalo. 



20 CHAPTER I. 



portunity tlius far of his life for studying books, and men, and 
things ; and he made the best use of the opportunity. He 
attended the session of the Supreme Court which sat in August 
of this year, constantly, and reported all its decisions. He 
also reported the decisions of the Circuit Court of the United 
States. He read diligently and carefully the books, generally, 
of the Common and Municipal Law, and the best authorities 
on the Law of Nations, some of them for the third time, ac- 
companying these studies with a vast variety of miscellaneous 
reading. His chief study, however, was the Common Law, 
and more especially that part of it which relates to the science 
of Special Pleading. This, one of the most ingenious and re- 
fined, and at the same time instructive and useful branches of 
the law, he pursued with constant devotion. Besides appro- 
priating whatever he could of this part of the science from 
Yiner, Bacon, and other books then in common study, he 
waded through Saunder's Reports — the old folio edition — and 
abstracted and put into English, out of the Latin and Norman- 
French, the pleadings, in all the reports. This undertaking, 
both as an exercise of the mind, and as an acquisition of useful 
learning, was of great advantage to him in his succeeding pro- 
fessional career. 

An anecdote I have heard Mr. Webster tell in relation to 
his first interview with a gentleman, then and afterwards dis- 
tinguished in the history of the country, it may not be improper 
to relate here. " I remember one day," says Mr. Webster, 
" as I was alone in the office, a man came in and asked for 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 21 

Mr. Gore. Mr. Gore was out, and lie sat down to wait for 
him. He was dressed in plain grey clothes. I went on with 
my book, till he asked me what I was reading, and, coming 
along up to the table, took the book and looked at it. ' Roc- 
cus,' said he, ' de navibus et nando.'' Well, I read that book 
too when I was a boy ;' and proceeded to talk not only about 
* ships and freights,' but insurance, prize, and other matters of 
maritime law, in a manner ^ to put me up to all I knew,' and a 
good deal more. The grey-coated stranger turned out to be 
Mr. Rufus King.' 

In March, 1805, Mr. Webster was admitted to practice, in 
the Suffolk Court of Common Pleas. The custom then pre- 
vailed for the patron to accompany his pupil into Court, intro- 
duce him to the Judges, make a brief speech in commendation 
of his studious conduct and attainments, and then mo-v^e for his 
admission to the Bar. A person present on the occasion of 
Mr. Webster's admission, informs me that he remembers al- 
most every word of Mr. Gore's speech, and that it contained, 
among other things, a prediction of his pupil's future profes- 
sional distinction. In all probability the prediction, as is 
generally the case, aided its own accomplishment. Certainly, 
the favorable opinion of such a man as Mr. Gore must have 
been an additional incentive to Mr. Webster's ambitious hopes 
and efforts. 

How much, after all, are the great men and events of his- 
tory, apparently, the sport of accidents ! The destiny of in- 
dividuals, and no less of nations, seems not so much the re- 



22 CHAPTER I. 

suit of foresight or determination, as of casual opinion or 
caprice ; or of circumstances, more uncertain than either. An 
adverse wind, neither to be anticipated nor overcome, kept the 
brewer's son within the shores of England, as he sought in a 
foreign clime the liberty of conscience refused him at home, 
and made him absolute master of his country's fortunes. An 
unsuccessful application for the Professorship of Logic in 
Glasgow University precipitated Edmund Burke upon his own 
energies, and gave to England its greatest philosophical orator. 
The offer of the clerkship of a county court, unexpected but 
not ungrateful, might, but for the earnest interposition of one 
man, have deprived America and the world of an intellect, of 
which neither America nor the world knows now the equal. 

The clerk of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of 
Hillsborough, New Hampshire, resigned his office in January, 
1S05. Mr. Webster's father was one of the judges of this 
court ; and his colleagues, from regard for him, tendered his 
son the vacant clerkship. It was what Judge Webster had 
long desired. The office was worth $1500 per annum, which 
was in those days, and in that neighborhood, a competency ; 
or rather absolute wealth. Mr. Webster himself considered 
it a great prize, and was eager to accept it. He weighed the 
question in his mind. On the one side he saw immediate 
comfort ; on the other, at the best, a doubtful struggle. By 
its acceptance, he made sure his own good condition, and, 
what was nearer to his heart, that of his family. By its re- 
fusal, he condemned both himself and them to an uncertain, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 23 

and probably, harrassing future. Whatever aspirations be 
might have cherished of professional distinction, he was will- 
ing cheerfully to relinquish, to promote the immediate wel- 
fare of those he held most dear. 

But Mr. Gore peremptorily and vehemently interposed his 
dissent. He urged every argument against the purpose. He 
exposed its absurdity and its inconsequence. He appealed to 
the ambition of his pupil ; once a clerk, he said, he always 
would be a clerk — there would be no step upwards. He at- 
tacked him, too, on the side of his family affection ; telling 
him that he would be far more able to gratify his friends from 
his professional labors than in the clerkship. '^ Go on," he 
said, " and finish your studies ; you are poor enough, but 
there are gTcater evils than poverty ; live on no man's favor ; 
what bread you do eat, let it be the bread of independence ; 
pursue your profession ; make yourself useful to your friends, 
and a little formidable to your enemies, and you have nothing 
to fear." 

Diverted from his design by arguments like these, it still 
remained to Mr. Webster to acquaint his father with his de- 
termination, and satisfy him of its propriety. He felt this 
would be no easy task, as his father had set his heart so much 
upon the office ; but he determined to go home immediately, 
and give him, in full, the reasons of his conduct. 

It was mid-winter, and he looked round for a country 
sleigh — for stage-coaches, at that time, were things unknown 
in the centre of New Hampshire — and finding one that had 



24 CHAPTER I. 

come down to market, lie took passage therein, and in two or 
three days was set down at his father's door. (The same 
journey is made now in four hours by steam.) It was evening 
when he arrived. I have heard him tell the story of the inter- 
view. His father was sitting before the fire, and received him 
with manifest joy. He looked feebler than he had ever ap- 
peared, but his countenance lighted up on seeing his clerk 
stand before him in good health and spirits. He lost no time 
in alluding to the great appointment — said how spontaneously 
it had been made — how kindly the chief justice proposed it, 
with what unanimity all assented, &c., &c. During this 
speech, it can be well imagined how embarrassed Mr. Web- 
ster felt, compelled, as he thought, from a conviction of duty 
to disappoint his father's sanguine expectations. Neverthe- 
less, he commanded his countenance and voice, so as to reply 
in a sufficiently assured manner. He spoke gaily about the 
office ; expressed his great obligation to their Honors, and 
his intention to write them a most respectful letter ; if he 
could have consented to record anybody's judgments, he 
should have been proud to have recorded their Honors', &c., 
&c. He proceeded in this strain, till his father exhibited 
signs of amazement, it having occurred to him, finally, that 
his son might all the while be serious — " Do you intend to 
decline this office .^" he said at length. '^ Most certainly," 
replied his son ;"I cannot think of doing otherwise. I mean 
to use my tongue in the courts, not my pen ; to be an actor, 
not a register of other men's actions." 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 25 

For a moment Judge Webster seemed angry. He rocked 
his chair slightly, a flash went over his eye, softened by age, 
but even then black as jet, but it immediately disappeared, 
and hi's countenance regained its usual serenity. Parental 
love and partiality could not after all but have been gratified 
with the son's devotion to an honorable and distinguished pro- 
fession, and seeming confidence of success in it. " Well, my 
son," said Judge Webster finally, " your mother has always 
said that you would come to something or nothing, she was 
not sure which. I think you are now about settling that 
doubt for her." The judge never afterwards spoke to his son 
on the subject. 

Mr. Webster having thus reconciled his father to his views 
returned to Boston. In March, following, having been ad- 
mitted to the bar, as before stated, he went to Amherst, New 
Hampshire, where his father's court was then in session ; from 
Amherst he went home with his father. His design had been 
to settle in the practice at Portsmouth ; but unwilling to leave 
his father, who had become infirm, and had no sons at home, 
he opened an office in Boscawen, near his father's residence, 
and commenced the practice of his profession. 

Judge Webster lived but a year after his son's commence- 
ment of practice ; long enough, however, to hear his first ar- 
gument in court, and to be gratified with confident predictions 
of his future success. Then, like Simeon of old, he gathered 
up his garments and died. 

He died in April, 1806. Exposure to the hardships of a 
2 



26 ' CHAPTER I. 

frontier life, more severe than we can now entertain any idea 
of, the privations and labors he suffered and underwent in the 
Indian wars, and the war of the Revolution, had broken in 
upon a constitution naturally robust, and hastened his decease. 
He was of a manly and generous character, and of a deport- 
ment and manner to gain him great consideration among all 
that knew him. In civil and military life, he obtained deserved 
distinction. Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for twelve 
or fourteen years, he made good, by the integrity of his pur- 
pose, the clearness of his judgment, and the strength of his 
character, the want of early education ; and gained for his 
opinions and decisions a confidence and concurrence not 
always accorded to persons professionally more learned. He 
was distinguished also in his military career. Entering the 
army a private, he retired a major ; and won his commission 
by faithful and gallant service, as well in the Revolutionary, 
as in the French and Indian wars. He acted as major under 
Stark, at Bennington, and contributed no little to the fortunate 
result of that day. 

In May, 1807, Mr. Webster was admitted as attorney and 
counsellor of the Superior Court in New Hampshire, and in 
September of that year relinquished his ofiice in Boscawen to 
his brother Ezekiel, who had then obtained admission to the 
bar, and moved to Portsmouth, according to his original inten- 
tion. 

He married in June, 1808, Grace Fletcher, the daughter of 
the Rev< Mr. Fletcher, of Hopkinton, N. H. By her he 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 27 

had four children ; Grace, Fletcher, Julia and Edward ; but 
one of whom, Fletcher, survives. Edward died with the 
army in Mexico, 1847, Major of the Massachusetts Reguuent 
of Volunteers. He was one of the most gentlemanly, amia- 
ble, and honorable young men of the age. 

Mr. Webster lived in Portsmouth nine years, wanting one 
month. The counsel most eminent at the bar of the county 
at that time, were Jeremiah Mason, Edward St. Loe Liver- 
more, Jeremiah Smith, Judge of the Superior Court and 
Governor of the State ; William King Atkinson, Attorney- 
General of the State ; George Sullivan, also Attorney-General ; 
Samuel Dexter and Joseph Story, of Massachusetts, all law- 
yers of much more than ordinary ability, and some of surpass- 
ing excellence. No bar, at that time, probably, in the coun- 
try, presented such an array of various talents. Mr. Webster's 
estimate of Judge Story and Mr. Mason, expressed in public, 
will form not the least important nor least enduring monument 
to their fame. It will out last the sculptured marble. For 
Mr. Mason, his professional rival sometimes, his friend always, 
he entertained a warm regard as well as respect. Mr. Mason 
was of infinite advantage to him, Mr. Webster has said, in 
Portsmouth, not only by his unvarying friendship, but by the 
many good lessons he taught him, and the good example he 
set him in the commencement of his career. '' If there be 
in the country a stronger intellect," Mr. Webster once said, 
" if there be a mind of more native resources, if there be a 
vision that sees quicker or sees deeper into whatever is intri- 



28 CHAPTER I. 

cate, or whatever is profound, I must confess I have not 
known it." 

Mr. Webster's practice, while he lived in Portsmouth, was 
very much a circuit practice. He followed the Superior 
Court in most of the counties of the State, and was retained 
in nearly all the important causes. It is a fact somewhat sin- 
gular of his professional life, that with the exception of in- 
stances in which he has been associated with the attorney- 
general of the United States for the time being, he has hardly 
appeared ten times as junior counsel. Once or twice with 
Mr. Mason, once or twice with Mr. Prescott, and with Mr. 
Hopkinson, are the only exceptions within recollection. 

Mr. Webster's practice in New Hampshire was never lucra- 
tive. Clients then and there were not rich, and fees, conse- 
quently, were not large ; nor were persons so litigious as in 
places less civilized by intelligence. Though his time was 
exclusively devoted to his profession, his practice never gave 
him more than a livelihood. 

He never held office, popular or other, in the government 
of New Hampshire. He occasionally took part in political 
aiFairs, and was then not unfelt in his action. His vote was 
always given, his voice and pen sometimes exercised, in favor 
of the party whose principles he espoused. Even in that 
early period of his life, however, when something perhaps, 
could be pardoned to the vehemence of youth, he used no 
acrimonious language of his political opponents, nor suggested 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 29 

or participated in any act indicative of personal animosity 
towards them. 

At thirty years of age, he had become well known and re- 
spected throughout the State ; so much so, that he was elect- 
ed a Representative of the State in Congress, after an animat- 
ed contest, in November, 1812, and took his seat at the extra 
session in May, 1813. 



What has been written thus far, relates rather to the pri- 
vate life of Mr. Webster ; what follows concerns, mostly, his 
public ; as gathered from the records and contemporaneous 
testimony. 

But the ingenuous youth of the country should understand, 
that Mr. Webster, great as he is, has not become so, without 
great study. Greatness has not been thrust upon him. He 
has studied books, he has studied mankind, he has studied 
himself, (which is the very fountain of all true wisdom,) 
deeply and conscientiously, from his earliest youth. There 
has been no unappropriated time with him ; none trifled away. 
Even in the hours of relaxation, he has thought of, and me- 
thodized the gleanings of the Past, or prepared results for 
the Future. 

He laid early and solid the foundation of his fame. While 
the mind was eager and facile to receive earnest impressions, 
he sought after everything in the way of learning, that waa 
sincere, elevated, and ennobling, to fill and satisfy it. He pur- 
sued no study he did not comprehend ; undertook no task to 



30 CHAPTER I. 

wHich lie did not devote his wliole mind. AVhatever he strove 
after, he acquired, and whatever he acquired, he retained. 

It was this early and constant seeking after knowledge — 
this desire unsatisfied with acquisition — this all-embracing 
pursuit, that determined his intellectual character, and pre- 
pared him for any encounter with the world. What he has 
said of Adams and Jefferson might be applied with equal 
truth to himself. " If we could now ascertain all the causes 
which gave them eminence and distinction, in the midst of 
the great men with whom they acted, we should find not 
among the least, their early acquisition in literature, the re- 
sources which it furnished, the promptitude and facility which 
it communicated, and the wide field it opened, for analogy and 
illustration ; giving them, thus, on every subject, a larger 
view, and a broader range, as well for discussion, as for the 
government of theu' own conduct." 



CHAPTER II. 

The hall of debate is certainly not so dangerous as the 
battle-field. Life is not involved in its struggles ; but still 
tliere can be perilled in it, no less, all that renders life de- 
sirable ; — character, position, influence. These all may be 
staked upon the decision of the moment : 

^^Concurritur: 
Aut cita morSj aut victoria IcBtaP 

Moral and physical courage too are equally required in the one 
as in the other ; there are many, ind'eed, who would prefer to 
lead a storming party or a forlorn hope, to undergoing the 
hazards of a forensic contest. 

To Mr. Webster, a deliberative assembly was a scene of 
action entirely new. He had undergone, before his entrance 
into Congress, no preliminary training. The common schools 
of our orators — State Legislatures — he knew nothing of : all 
that he now saw resembled nothins; he had ever seen. Yet he 
was neither perplexed, nor discouraged ; he had subdued to a 
great degree his early diffidence, and became self-reliant. It 
may be said of him as it has been said of the younger Pitt; 



32 CHAPTER II. 

the same composure, earnestness, and imposing manner, the 
same nervous, sinewy, accurate diction, the same variety, 
nicety and fuUness of knowledge distinguished him on his 
first rising as in his later senatorial career. 

Bat at Eton or Oxford, the future orators and statesmen 
of England are as regularly taught and drilled for the stations 
they are intended to fill, as pupils of the Polytechnic school. 
They have their mimic Parliament, where they acquire all the 
formula, the routine, and ofiicial etiquette — the jus et norma 
loquendi — which aid so much the success of their earliest 
efibrts in the House. And when they enter Parliament, they 
but exchange the scene of their contests and their triumphs. 

Mr. Webster was not like them " swaddled and rocked and 
dandled" into a Legislator. All he acquired was by dint of 
hard, unassisted labor. He had no models upon which to 
fashion himself. He had no example to encourage or warn. 
No one can read a speech of his, and not perceive the frequent 
and abundant evidence of obstacles encountered and over- 
come : of independent, manly thought ; of early and close self- 
discipline ; earnest introspection ; great moral and intellectual 
hardihood. 

He no sooner entered Congress than he obtained a command- 
ing influence there ; without hereditary name, ofiicial influence, 
or party ascendancy. His success was the result of a mind 
remarkably constituted for public effort ; a mind that weighed 
and matured; that rejected nothing from prejudice, and em- 
braced nothing without examination ; that was full, sincere, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 33 

logical, profound. It was, too, the result of an active, perti- 
nacious dilio-ence that has controlled his whole life. 

He came into Congress in a period of great excitement. 
The insolent indifference of Great Britain to our maritime 
rights had provoked the country into a declaration of war, and 
hostilities were at this time at their height. It is true the 
measures of doubtful policy, which preceded the war, and its 
early injudicious management, had weakened in the minds of 
the people in various sections of the country the conviction of 
its justice or necessity. But in Congress, however, all the 
belligerent propositions of the administration were supported 
by decisive majorities. Henry Clay, who had urged the 
declaration of war with almost as much vehemence and perti- 
nacity, as Cato the destruction of Carthage, was elected 
Speaker of the Lower House, by a triumphant vote, receiving 
eighty-nine out of one hundred and forty-eight ballots ; and 
lent his position and great personal influence, in their whole 
extent, to the support of the policy of the administration. 

Mr. Webster was placed on the Committee of Foreign Af- 
fairs. Though his reputation hitherto had been almost wholly 
provincial, whether from his personal deportment and appear- 
ance, some foreshadowings of his ability, or from some one of 
the many inexplicable causes that give to the judgment of man 
the certainty of intuition, this position was at once conceded 
to him. He was placed upon the most important Committee 
of the House, though one of the youngest (if not the youngest) 

Member in it, and wholly new to public affairs. 
9^ 



34 CHAPTER II. 

Besides tlie distinguislied name of Clay, this Congress 
boasted others of a national character. Calhoun, Forsyth, 
Grundy, Nathaniel Macon, Wm. Gaston, of N. C, — no 
less a jurist than a statesman, — Timothy Pickering, of 
Mass., John W. Taylor, of New York, C. J. Ingersoll, 
and Wm. R. King, then representing North Carolina, were all 
members of the House: most of them just starting, with 
generous rivalry, upon their race of distinction. 

It was on Thursday, June 10th, 1813, that Mr. Webster 
made his maiden speech to the House. It was upon certain 
resolutions which he introduced in relation to the repeal of the 
Berlin and Milan Decrees, the first of which was in these 
words : " Besolvcd, That the President of the United States 
be requested to inform this House, unless the public interest 
should in his opinion forbid such communication, when and by 
whom, and in what manner, the first intelligence was given to 
this Government of the decree of the Government of France, 
bearing date the 28th of April, 1811, and purporting to be a 
definitive repeal of the Decrees of Berlin and Milan." 

These resolutions were not introduced to embarrass the 

Administration, but to elicit information that might throw 

some light upon the proximate causes of the war, and enable 

members to best judge the most proper manner of conducting 

it. 

Mr. Webster, in his speech on these resolutions displayed a 

cautious regard for facts, a philosophical moderation of tone, 

a fulness of knowledge, and an amplitude of historical illustra- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 35 

tion whicli astonislied the House. There was no exaggeration 
of statement or argument, no sophistry nor uncalled-for rhetoric 
in his speech ; the oldest Parliamentarian could not have ex- 
hibited more propriety and decency of manner or language, 
nor the most able, a logic more perspicacious or more con- 
vincing. There was a harmony between his thought and its 
expression, that won attention and compelled admiration. 
The opening of his speech was simple, unaffected, without pre- 
tension, gradually gaining the confidence of his audience by its 
transparent sincerity and freedom from aught resembling dis- 
play. As the orator continued and grew animated, his words 
became more fluent, and his language more nervous ; a crowd 
of thoughts seemed rushing upon him, all eager for utterance. 
He held them, however, under the command of his mind, as 
greyhounds with a leash, till he neared the close of his speech, 
when, warmed by the previous restraint, he poured them all 
forth, one after another, in glowing language. 

The speech took the House by surprise, not so much from 
its eloquence as from the vast amount of historical knowledge 
and illustrative ability displayed in it. How a person, un- 
trained to forensic contests and unused to public affairs, could 
exhibit so much Parliamentary tact, such nice appreciation of 
the difficulties of a difficult question, and such quiet facility in 
surmounting them, puzzled the mind. The age and inexpe- 
rience of the speaker had prepared the House for no such dis- 
play, and astonishment for a time subdued the expression of 
its admiration. 



36 CHAPTER II. r 

" No member before," says a person then in the House, 
" ever rivetted the attention of the House so closely, in his 
first speech. Members left their seats where they could not 
see the speaker, face to face, and sat down, or stood on the 
floor, fronting him. All listened attentively and silently, during 
the whole speech ; and when it was over, many went up and 
warmly congratulated the orator ; among whom, were some, 
not the most niggard of their compliments, who most dissent- 
ed from the views he had expressed." 

Chief Justice Marshall, writing to a friend sometime after 
this speech, says : " at the time when this speech was delivered, 
I did not know Mr. Webster, but I was so much struck with 
it, that I did not hesitate then to state, that Mr. Webster was 
a very able man, and would become one of the very first 
statesmen in America, and perhaps the very first." 

The speech immediately raised its author to the first con- 
sideration in the House^ and gained him great reputation 
throughout the country. The object it proposed was merely 
information respecting the time and manner in which the l^3- 
vocation of the Berlin and Milan Decrees reached the Presi- 
dent. Certain opponents, however, of the administration used 
the introduction of the resolutions as an opportunity for as- 
sault upon it, particularly as related to its conduct of the war. 
The National Intelligencer, — the organ of the dominant party, 
— says in the paper of June 18th : " This debate has now 
assumed such a character, that, although there is but little 
opposition to Mr. Webster's motion, it has become necessary 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 37 

for the advocates of the present war, for the friends of the ad- 
ministration, the defenders of their country's reputation, to 
repel the violence of their opponents, and in turn pui-sue to 
the inmost recesses of their coverts, and drag them forth into 
the light of day." 

But Mr. "Webster took no part in the debate after it had 
assumed a factious character ; his object being, not to foment 
party quarrels, but to carry out a national purpose. 

His resolutions were carried by a large majority ; the first, 
by a vote of 137 to 26 ; and President Madison, in obedience 
to the call of the House, communicated full and satisfactory 
information upon the subject. 

]Mr. "Webster was not in Congress when the war with Glreat 
Britain was commenced, nor in public life. As a private 
citizen, he entertained opinions adverse to the policy of the 
restrictive system and the embargo, considering them more in- 
jurious in their operation to our own country than to England ; 
and in this opinion, Mr. Calhoun and other prominent mem- 
bers of the Republican party concurred. 

When he entered Congress, war was raging. He did not 
always approve either in his speeches or by his votes the man- 
ner in which it was carried on ; but he never refused his vote 
to any measure for defending the country, repelling invasion, 
or giving greater force and vitality to the laws. He was not 
unmindful that his father had fought the same enemy in our 
revolutionary struggle ; nor would he himself have hesitated 
to take the field, had the country needed his arm. Ports- 



38 CHAPTER II 

moiitli — the town of his residence — ^being threatened with at- 
tack from a fleet of the enemy, hovering over the coast, he 
was placed, on the nomination of John Langdon, a man of 
odorous patriotism, at the head of the committee raised for its 

defence. 

The best way of annoying England, and crippling its ener- 
gies was, he thought, by attacking her on the sea. Before he 
was elected to Congress, and before war, though threatening, 
had been declared, he put forth some vigorous articles in favor 
of the navy ; and he had no sooner entered the House, than 
he raised his voice to urge a greater attention to the character 
and equipment of this gallant service. " We were at war," 
he said afterwards, " with the greatest maritime power on 
earth. England had gained an ascendancy on the seas over 
the whole combined force of Europe. She had been at war 
twenty years. She had tried her fortunes on the Continent, 
but generally with no success. At one time, the whole Con- 
tinent had been closed against her. A long line of armed ex- 
terior, an unbroken hostile array, frowned upon her from the 
Gulf of Archangel, round the promontory of Spain and Por- 
tufral, to the foot of the boot of Italy. There was not a port 
which an English ship could enter. Everywhere on the land 
the genius of her great enemy had triumphed. He had de- 
feated armies, crushed coalitions, and overturned thrones ; but 
like the fabled giant, he was unconquerable only when he 
touched the land. On the ocean he was powerless. That 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 39 

field of fame was his adversary's, and her meteor flag was 
streaming in triumph all over it. 

'* To her maritime ascendancy England owed everything, 
and we were at war with her. One of the most charming of 
her poets has said of her, that 

' Her march is o'er the mountain wave, 
Her home is on the deep.' 

" Now since we were at war with her, I was for intercept- 
ing this march ; I was for calling upon her, and paying our 
respects to her at home ; I was for giving her to know that 
we, too, had a right of way over the seas, and that our 
marine ofl&cers and our sailors were not entire strangers on the 
bosom of the deep ; I was for doing something more with our 
navy than to keep it on our shores for the protection of our 
own coasts and our own harbors ; I was for giving play to its 
gallant and burning spirit ; for allowing it to go forth upon the 
seas, and encounter, on an open and equal field, whatever the 
proudest and the bravest of the enemy could bring against it. 
I knew the character of its officers, and the spirit of its sea- 
men ; and I knew that, in their hands, though the flag of the 
country might go down to the bottom, while they went with it, 
yet that it could never be dishonored or disgraced." 

The speech he delivered in favor of putting the navy in 
proper condition, and sending it forth to gain laurels on a free, 
open field, was one of the best he made during the session. 

A quarter of a century after the war, Mr. Calhoun, in the 
Senate of the United States, in some reply to Mr. Webster, 



40 CHAPTER II. 

made a general allusion to his votes and speeches during the 
war, and insinuated that they might not all bear scrutiny. 
Mr. Webster, after indignantly repelling the charge, and prov- 
ing its groundlessness, concluded in these words : " As I do 
not mean to recur to this subject often, or ever, unless indis- 
pensably necessary, I repeat the demand for any charge, any 
accusation, any allegation whatever, that throws me behind the 
honorable gentleman, or behind any other man, in honor, in 
fidelity, in devoted love to that country in which I was born, 
which has honored me, and which I serve. I who seldom deal 
in defiance, now, here, in my place, boldly defy the honorable 
member to put his insinuation in the form of a charge, and to 
support that charge by any proof whatever." 

The challenge thus thrown out, Mr. Calhoun never accept- 
ed, nor, is it probable, any other man ever will. 

The principal speeches made by Mr. Webster during this 
Congress, were upon his own resolutions — upon the increase 
of the Navy — upon the rescinding of the Embargo, and upon 
the Previous Question j all indicative of various as well as 
eminent talent. 



In January, 1814, while Mr. Webster was in Washington 
attending to his duties as a member of Congress, a great fire 
took place in Portsmouth — in which he lost house, furniture, 
books, everything — a loss to him, at that time of no incon- 
siderable magnitude.* 

=^ This was the " Great Fire" of Portsmouth. I have heard Mr 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 41 

In the beginning of the year 1814, John Quincy Adams, 
then minister to Russia, James A. Bayard, of Delaware, 
Jonathan Russell, of R. I., and Henry Clay, were ap- 
pointed Commissioners to Gottenburg, to meet the Commis- 
sioners of Great Britain nnder an overture proposed by the 
government of that country and accepted by ours, for concert- 
ing the conditions of peace between the two countries. 

Webster tell an anecdote relating to the burning of his house, which it 
may be worth while to repeat. 

The house \72.s the first to catch on fire. It took fire on the roof— as 
was supposed, from a neighboring stable. No one was at home but Mrs. 
"Webster, her daughter Grace, and the servants — Fletcher being out at 
nurse. A man by the name of Parry — an acquaintance — rushed into the 
house, and seizing Mrs. Webster by the hands exclaimed : '• Mrs. Web- 
ster, don't be agitated— don't be alarmed, Mrs. Webster." " I am not 
alarmed. Mr. Parry. Why should I be 1 What's the matter ?" " Don't 
be alarmed, Mrs. Webster — for Heaven's sake, don't be alarmed," cried 
he — " there is no danger." '• Danger of what ?" said Mrs. Webster — 
" What is the matter, Mr. Parry ?" " My dear madam don't be alarm.ed, 
but your house is all onfire^ and the roof must befalling in by this timeP 

Mrs. Webster, with great presence of mind, gave directions for saving 
whatever of the furniture, &c., was easy of access and removal ; some 
of the neighbors hastening in to aid her. But they, however, were 
obliged to leave her to take care of their own houses, which were soon 
likewise in a blaze — many houses, and property to a large amount, were 
destroyed. 

Mr. Webster had been diverted from his purpose of insuring house 
and furniture, and suffered in consequence a total loss, with the excep- 
tioe of the few articles preserved by his wife, of both — in all, perhaps, 
$7,000. 



42 CHAPTER II. 

The acceptance of tliis mission by Mr. Clay necessarily va- 
cated tlie Speakership. On January 19th, he resigned the 
office, with these remarks : » '^**T 

" G-entleiaen, — I have attended you to-day, to announce 
my resignation of the distinguished station in this House, with 
which I have been honored by your kindness. In taking leave 
of you, gentlemen, I shall be excused for embracing this last 
occasion, to express to you personally my thanks for the frank 
and liberal support, the chair has experienced at your hands. 
Wherever I may go, in whatever situation I may be placed, I 
can never cease to cherish, with the fondest remembrance, 
the sentiments of esteem and respect with which you have in- 
spired me." 

Certainly, no one ever presided over any deliberative body, 
in this country, with more personal popularity and influence 
than Mr. Clay, He governed the House with more absolute- 
ness than any Speaker that preceded or followed him. It was 
a power founded upon character and manners. Fearless, 
energetic, decided, he swayed the timid by superior will, and 
governed the bold, through sympathy. A chivalric bearing, 
easy address, and a warm manner that seemed to imply a 
warm heart, drew around him crowds of admirers. He culti- 
vated — what our great men too much neglect — the philosophy 
of manners. None knew better than he the wondrous power 
in seeming trifles ; how much a word, a tone, a look can ac- 
complish ; what direction give to the whole character of 
opinion and conduct. There seemed nothing constrained in 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 43 

bis courtesy, notliing simulated ; all bis raanncr was simple, 
unaffected, ardent ; if it were not genuine, be bad early arrived 
at tbe perfection of art, and concealed tbe art. 

As an orator, be was unequalled ; even in an assembly tbat 
boasted of Cbeves, of Lowndes, of Forsytb, and otbers no less 
distino-uisbed. His voice was sonorous and musical, fallino; 
witb proper cadence from tbe bigbest to tbe lowest tones ; at 
times, wben in narrative or description, modulated, smootb 
and pleasing, like sounds of running water ; but wben raised 
to animate and cbeer, it was as clear and spirit-stirring as tbe 
notes of a clarion, tbe House all tbe wbile rino-ino; witb its 
melody. 

Oftentimes be left bis cbair to address tbe House. A call 
of tbe House would not bave brougbt members in more eagerly. 
Few, indeed, could bave indulged in sucb frequency of speecb, 
and retained personal ascendency. But bis influence seemed 
to increase in strengtb, tbe oftener it was exerted. He bad a 
wonderful tact, by wbicb be judged, as by intuition, wben tbe 
subject, or tbe patience of bis audience, tbreatened to be ex- 
hausted ; and took care always to leave tbe curiosity of bis 
bearers unsatisfied. 

" I was a member of tbe House durino; tbe war," writes 
a gentleman to tbe editor of tbese papers, *' and was pre- 
sent wben Mr. Clay made bis farewell speecb on resigning tbe 
Speakership. It was an impressive occasion. Not only were 
all tbe seats of members occupied, but many senators attend- 
ed, and a large miscellaneous crowd. Tbe war wbicb be bad 



44 CHAPTER II. 

been most active in hastening, and most energetic in prose- 
cuting, lie was now commissioned with others to close. He 
was the youngest of the Commissioners, but sagacious far be- 
yond his years. The hopes of the country tired of a protract- 
ed struggle, grew brighter from his appointment. 

" Undoubtedly, at this time, even in his youthful age, he had 
no rival in popularity. His name was everywhere familiar as 
" household words." His own bearing evinced a conscious- 
ness of his favor in the country. I was struck with his ap- 
pearance on this occasion. There was a fire in his eye, an 
elation in his countenance, a buoyancy in his whole action, 
that seemed the self-consciousness of coming greatness. Hope 
brightened, and joy elevated his crest. As full of confidence, 
gallant bearing, and gratified look, he took his seat in the 
Speaker's chair, his towering height even more conspicuous 
than usual, I could not but call to mind Vernon's descrip- 
tion of Henry, Prince of Wales, in Shakspeare : 

" I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, 
His cuisses on his thigh, gallantly armed, 
Rise from the ground, like feather'd Mercury, 
And vaulted with such ease into his seat, 
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, 
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 
And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 

" Age at this time had not withered, nor custom staled the 
infinite variety of his genius. The defects of his character 
had not been developed ; prosperity had not sunned them ; 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 45 

and they lie unsprouted in his heart ; nor had he committed 
any of the blunders of his later life, which, in a political view, 
have been pronounced worse than crimes. 

" After he had resigned the chair, in a neat and appropri- 
ate speech, he came down to the floor ; and members sur- 
rounded him, to express their great grief at his withdrawal, — 
mingled, however, with congratulations upon his appointment, 
and with the expression of sanguine anticipations of the suc- 
cess of his mission." 

Mr Clay having resigned his seat, with the remarks already 
quoted, Mr. Findley, of Pennsylvania, moved the following 
resolution : 

" Resolved^ That the thanks of this House be presented to 
Henry Clay, in testimony of their approbation of his conduct, 
in the arduous and important duties assigned to him as Speaker 
of the House." 

This resolution was carried by a vote of 144 to 9. ^' The 
minority on this occasion," says the National Intelligencer, 
'' was composed of those whose approbation, we may venture 
to say, Henry Clay never courted, if he desired it." 

On the retirement of Mr. Clay, Langdon Cheves, of South 
Carolina, was elected Speaker, and performed the duties of the 
office with great ability. 

Much intellectual sparring took place this session between 
Calhoun, Lowndes, Forsyth and Cheves, on one side, and 
Webster, Pickering and Oakley on the other. The almost 
life-long contest between Calhoun and Webster had its origin 



46 CHAPTER II. 

then. They have differed on measures and principles, hut 
chiefly upon the construction of the Constitution, at least in 
later years. Earlier in life, Mr. Calhoun contended with as 
much force and eloquence for a liberal construction of this in- 
strument, as, later, for a narrow one. 

But Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster never infused into their 
political controversies the bitterness of personal feeling. Each 
was too great to feel envious of the other's ability, too mag- 
nanimous to withhold admiration of the other's extraordinary 
endowments. Never, during their whole Parliamentary career, 
did either of these distinguished gentlemen, on any occasion, 
impugn the other's motives, or address him in words of unkind- 
ness. They respected each other, and they respected them- 
selves. 

The eminence Mr. Webster rose to, even in this his first 
parliamentary term, was generally acknowledged even by his 
political opponents. Mr. Lowndes, who was one of the very 
few who could have disputed his rank, said of him : " The 
North had not his equal, nor the South his superior." 



Mr. Webster was re-elected to Congress from New Hamp- 
shire, in August, 1814, after a warm political canvass. 

Early in January, 1815, Mr. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, in- 
troduced into the House a bill for the charter of an United 
States Bank. This measure Mr. Webster opposed in a speech 
of great force, displaying an amount of knowledge of the his- 
tory and philosophy of finance, which astonished even those 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 47 

who thouglit most highly of his abilities. He denounced it as 
a mere paper bank — a mere machine for fabricating irredeem- 
able paper — a plan for using the sanction of the Government 
to defraud the people.* Mr. Calhoun also opposed it, and Mr. 

=* " What sort of an institution, Mr. Speaker," said he, " is this ? Il 
looks less like a bank than a department of Government. It will be 
properly the paper-money department. Its capital is Government debts 
the amount of its issues will depend on Government necessities ; Gov 
emment, in effect, absolves itself from its own debts to the bank, and, 
by way of compensation, absolves the bank from its own contracts with 
others. This is, indeed, a wonderful scheme of finance. The Govern- 
ment is to grow rich, because it is to borrow without the obligation of 
repaying, and is to borrow of a bank which issues paper without liability 
to redeem it. If this bank, like other institutions which dull and plod- 
ding sense has erected, w^ere to pay its debts, it must have some limits to 
its issues of paper, and, therefore, there would be a point beyond which 
it could not make loans to Government. This would fall short of the 
wishes of the contrivers of this system. They provide for an unlimited 
issue of paper, in an entire exemption from payment. They found their 
bank, in the first place, on the discredit of Government, and then hope 
to enrich Government out of the insolvency of their bank. With them, 
poverty itself is the main source of supply, and bankruptcy a mine of in- 
exhaustible treasure. They rely, not in the ability of the bank, but in 
its beggary ; not in gold and silver collected in its vaults, to pay its debts 
and fulfil its promises, but in its locks and bars, provided by statute, to 
fasten its doors against the solicitations and clamors of unfortunate credi- 
tors. Such an institution, they flatter themselves, will not only be able 
to sustain itself, but to buoy up the sinking credit of the Government. A 
bank which does not pay, is to guaranty the engagements of a Govern- 
ment which does not pay ! Thus the empty vaults of the treasury are 



48 CHAPTER II. 

Lowndes, in able speeches, and led off against the measure 
some twenty members of the Republican party. It was lost, 
after a severe struggle, by the casting vote of the Speaker, Mr. 
Cheves, of S. C. 

It was, however, reconsidered, and amended in several im- 
portant particulars. The bill, as amended, passed the House 
by a large majority, Mr. \Yebster voting in its favor. It 
passed the Senate, but not without much difficulty, and was 
sent to the President, who returned it to the House where it 
originated, with his reasons for refusing to sign it, the principal 
of which was its inexpediency. An attempt to pass it — the 
veto notwithstanding — failed entirely. 

On the 8th day of January, of this year, was fought the 
ever-memorable battle of New Orleans, the result of which 
spread joy and exultation throughout the nation. The heroic 
conduct of Gren. Jackson was the praise of every tongue ; no 
encomium seemed equal to his merits. Congress, responding 
to the grateful feeling of the nation, voted him thanks and 
medals, in commemoration of his gallant services.* The vic- 
tory was fit copostone to the war. 

to be filled from the equally empty vaults of the bank, and the ingenious 

invention of a partnership between insolvents is to restore and establish 

the credit of both." 

* Henry Clay said, in his speech to the House, in March, 1816: " Whilst 

the Mississippi continues to bear the tributes of the Iron Mountains and 
the Alleghany to her Delta and to her Gulf of Mexico, the 8th of 

January shall be remembered, and the glory of that day shall stimulate 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 49 

The thirteenth Congress adjourned on the 4th of March, 
1815, the date of its constitutional existence. Mr. Webster 
returned to New Hampshire, and his professional avocations, 
keeping company with judges, sheriffs and witnesses, plaintiffs 
and defendants. He began at this time to agitate the question 
of change of residence, his practice in New Hampshire ceasing 
to afford him a proper livelihood. His mind hesitated between 
Albany and Boston ; till, finally, being unable to make an im- 
mediate election between the two places, he postponed, for a 
later period, the determination of the question. 

On the re-assembling of Congress in December, 1815, Henry 
Clay was again elected Speaker, no one of his party contesting 
his candidatecy. He was welcomed back to the seat in which 
he had gained such eminent distinction. His popularity 
in the country had nearly reached its culminating point. 
Peace with Great Britain, which the heart of the people longed 
for now, as before for the declaration of war, had been satis- 
factorily arranged, and partly through his agency ; and the 
multitude, ever seeking some tangible object of worship, lav- 
ished upon him every expression of grateful feeling and per- 
sonal devotion. He was associated in their minds with the 
national glory and national prosperity. All the Government 
had proposed by waging war against Great Britain — the free- 
dom of our commerce, the safety of our seamen, and the honor 
of our flag, — had been secured, if not by express condition in 

future patriots, and nerve the arms of unborn freemen in driving the 

presumptuous invader from our country's soil.'' 

o 



50 CHAPTER II. 

the Treaty of Peace, yet by the readiness with which the war 
had been entered upon, the earnestness with which it had been 
carried on, and its ultimate success. Those, therefore, who 
had been most warm for the declaration of war, and most ac- 
tive in its vigorous prosecution, were now most endeared to tha 
hearts of the nation. 



Mr. Calhoun appeared in this session as the great champion 
of a National Bank, a Protective Tariff, and Internal Improve- 
ments. In relation to the Tariff, he said in his well-considered 
speech of April, 1816 : "In regard to the question how far 
manufactures ought to be encouraged, it was the duty of this 
Government, as a means of defence, to encourage domestic in- 
dustry, more especially that part of it which provides the ne- 
cessary materials for clothing and defence. 

" The question relating to manufactures, must not depend 
on the abstract principle, that industry left to pursue its 
own course, will find in its own interest all the encouragement 
that is necessary. I lay the claims of the manufacturer en- 
tirely out of view ; but on general principles, without regard 
-to their interest, a certain encouragement should be extended, 
at least to our woollen and cotton manufactures." 

Mr. Calhoun was the architect of the tariff of 1816. But 
for his exertions and South Carolina votes, it had never passed. 
Even the minimum^ the object afterwards of so much reviling 
and wrathful rhetoric on the part of the South, was established 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 61 

by Southern votes ; and the jprincijph of protection advocated, 
urged, and secured. 

Mr. Webster disagreed witb Mr. Calhoun, and opposed the 
high tariff policy. The bill that finally passed was amended, 
on his motion, in certain important particulars ; on its passage, 
however, he voted against it, as being crude in its character, 
and certain to be injurious in its operation to his constituents. 
It has been said that at one time Mr. Webster denied the 
constitutional power of Congress to impose a tariff for protec- 
tion. Such is not the case. It is true, however, that in a 
speech at Faneuil Hall, sometime in 1820, he contended that 
if the power of protection be inferred only from the revenue 
power, the protection could only be incidental ; that duties 
ought not be laid for the mere object of protection. 

But Mr. Madison's published opinion, after this period, and 
his declaration that the Convention which framed the Consti- 
tution did intend to grant the power of protection, under the 
commercial clause^ were conclusive, in Mr. Webster's judgment, 
of the power. And the 'policy of the tariff having become the 
settled and established policy of the country, he acquiesced in 
and supported it. 

In his speech against chartering the Bank of the United 
States, which he delivered in February, '16, Mr. Webster 
displayed an amount of financial knowledge, which surprised the 
House no less than his acquaintance with the history and 
policy of other countries, as made known to Congress in his 
speech two years before. His mind grasped aU the details, as 



52 CHAPTER II. 

well as tlie more prominent principles of the financial system, 
and defined them clearly to his audience. He introduced 
amendments restrictive of the powers and privileges of the 
bank, which he carried through by his earnest argument of 
their necessity ; among others, one which made it compulsory 
and penal on the bank to pay its deposits in specie, as well as 
its notes and bills ; and another, limiting the right of the in- 
stitution to sue, in State Courts alone, instead of " all courts 
whatsoever," as provided for in the original bill. 

He disliked, and protested against, the participations of the 
government in the direction and management of the bank, — 
contending it would be alike injurious to both parties ; and 
urged, with much vehemence of argument, other fatal objec- 
tions to the bill. 

But it passed the House by a vote of 82 to 61. John 
Randolph, with other republicans, less distinguished, voting in 
the negative. 

Mr. Calhoun too, was the father of the system of National 
Improvements. Early in the next session of Congress — in 
December, 1816 — a committee was raised on his motion, of 
which he was appointed chairman, to consider the propriety 
of setting apart the bonus ^ which the Bank of the United 
States paid for its charter, amounting to one million five hun- 
dred thousand dollars, and also the dividends in the stock of 
the Bank belonging to the United States, as a permanent fund 
for internal improvements ; and, soon after, reported a bill for 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 53 

carrying out the objects for whicli the committee had been ap- 
pointed. 

In the Committee of the Whole House on this bill, he 
made a very able, argumentative speech on the general policy 
of national improvements, and the power of Congress over 
the subject. 

" Let us make," says he, " permanent roads, not like the 
Romans, with the view of subjecting and ruling provinces, but 
for the more honorable purposes of defence, and connecting 
more closely the interests of various sections of this great 
country. 

" Let us bind the Republic together, with a perfect system 
of roads and canals. Let us conquer space. It is thus the 
most distant parts of the Republic will be brought within a 
few days travel of the centre ; it is thus that a citizen of the 
West will read the news of Boston still moist from the press." 

In truth, no one member of this celebrated fourteenth Con- 
gress, acquired more national reputation than Mr. Calhoun. 
His early parliamentary career gave promise of permanent 
utility to the whole country. The liberality of his views, the 
earnestness and ability with which they were expressed, and the 
sympathy and co-operation with which they were met, gave 
assurance to the country of a prosperous Future. 

Men watched his star rising in the clear unclouded sky, and 
rejoiced, for they thought to see it bring in its train national 
health, happiness and greatness. A Southerner by birth, he 
expressed and advocated no local views ; but, with a mind as 



54 CHAPTER ri. 

vast as its interests, emlbraced in his language and his action, 
the whole country. His popularity was, as his views, national ; 
in Massachussetts he was no less regarded than in South 
Carolina ; his name was familiarized everywhere. 

He soon after became a member of Mr. Munroe's cabinet; 
and, in that position, lent new force to the policy he had so 
warmly advocated while in Congress. In fact, by this time, 
his conorressional and ministerial services had determined the 
minds of many influential politicians in various sections of the 
country, to bring him cut as the most proper candidate for 
the presidency. In the North, he was especially a favorite. 
His efficient advocacy of internal improvements, sound cur- 
rency, and protection of domestic manufactures, had gained 
him a strong alliance there. Mr. Webster, among others, 
was not insensible either to his services, or to the popularity 
they had justly given him ; and he advised a young friend of 
his, then editing a paper in one of the New England States, 
and who had sought his views in regard to the proper candi- 
date of the North for the presidency in the approaching cam- 
paign, (1824,) to support Mr. Calhoun for the position ; un- 
fortunately, a short-sighted, narrow, sectional pride of feeling 
induced New England to give its vote to John Quincy Adams, 
whose elevation, by a seeming retributive justice, did more to 
render New England men, measures and views unpopular, than 
any other political event could possibly have done. New 
England has never recovered from this untoward event. 

At the close of the fourteenth Congress, the three names 



DANIEL WEBSTER, 55 

most distinguished in it— Webster, Clay, Calhoun— occu- 
pied, almost exclusively, the niinds of all men. There was 
nothing, seemingly, beyond the scope of their ambition or at- 
tainment. They had but to form a triumvirate, and divide 
the world between them ; not in contemporaneous but alter- 
nate fruition. Had they done so, the historian of the twenty- 
four years in which they should have filled the presidential 
chair would have described an era of national honor, national 
prosperity, and national greatness, the like of which, in no 
country, have the records of ancient or modern times afforded. 
The imagination halts in the vain attempt to reach the com- 
prehension of such an ideal, and turns unsatisfied away. 

The devoted friends of these eminent men might be equally 
unwilling and unable to say, whose hot ambition of the three 
prevented such a glorious consummation ; in after times, how- 
ever, the impartial historian, reviewing carefully their cha- 
racter and conduct, may discover, and demonstrate to the 
world, the one most faithless to the present, and all future 
ages. 



After the adjournment of Congress, in August, 1816, Mr. 
Webster left Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and established his 
residence in Boston. His professional practice in New 
Hampshire had ceased to afford him and his family a liveli- 
hood, broken in upon, as it was, by his duties at Washington. 
In Boston, his name as an advocate and orator was, by this 
time well known; and influential friends there succeeded 



56 CHAPTER II. 

in prevailing upon liim to select that city for his future 

home. 

He never has since gone into a New Hampshire court, ex- 
cept on one occasion, when he went down from Boston in 
September, 1817, in the Dartmouth College case. 

The question in this case was — whether certain acts of the 
New Hampshire Legislature, purporting to enlarge and im- 
prove the Corporation of Darmouth College, and amend its 
charter, were binding upon the Corporation, without their 
acceptance or assent ; and not repugnant to the Constitution of 
the United States ? Mr. Webster argued the case as counsel 
for the Corporation. The opinion of the Superior Court of 
the State, before which it was argued, as delivered by Chief 
Justice Richardson, was in favor of the validity and constitu- 
tionality of the acts ; and judgment was entered accordingly. 

Whereupon a writ of error was sued out by the Corpora- 
tion of the College to remove the cause to the Supreme Court 
of the United States. It came on for argument there in March, 
1818, and before all the judges. It was argued by Mr. Webster 
and Mr. Hopkinson for the plaintiffs in error, and by Mr. 
Holmes and the Attorney-General, for the other side. 

The question involved in this case was quite new to our 
jurisprudence ; and when the case had been called up for ar- 
gument, and Mr. Justice Story had run his eye over it, he 
said he did not see how anything could be made out of it. 

He changed his opinion on the hearing of Mr. Webster's 
argument, and coincided with his colleagues in declaring the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 57 

acts of the Legislature unconstitutional and invalid, and in re- 
versing the judgment of the State Court.* 

This may be called Mr. Webster's first constitutional argu- 
ment ; and in this view alone would be sufficient to provoke its 
careful study ; even if it did not embrace the clearest, yet 
most succinct account of eleemosynary corporations, of their 
character and purposes, their privileges, property and immu- 
nities, ever expressed in words. No case, however remotely 
connected with it in principle, has since been argued, or ever 
will be, but with liberal quotations of its language and 
opinions. 



When Mr. Webster removed to Boston, he had still one 
session to serve as member of Congress from New Hampshire. 
It was a session of no great importance to Mr. Webster's per- 

* From the security gained to the chartered privileges of this corpo- 
ration by Mr. Webster, through this final decision of the Supreme Court 
of the United States, he is entitled to be considered the second founder of 
the institution. He far more than repaid by his success all he obtained 
from his collegiate education. His name should be held in grateful com- 
memoration there, in all coming ages, no less than that of Henry VI. 

at Eton : 

" Where grateful science still adores 

Her holy Henry's shade." 
It is no little creditable in the mean time, to the character of New 
Hampshire, that its Legislature and citizens generally, rendered an im- 
mediate if not cheerful obedience to the decision of the highest tribunal 
known to the constitution. But New Hampshire ever was a law-abid- 
ing and authority-regarding State. 



68 CHAPTER ir. 

sonal history, or to the country. No agitating questions were 
brought before it, either of domestic or foreign character ; 
and legislation was moderate and unimpeded. 

A domestic affliction fell upon Mr. Webster this winter 
while at Washington. His daughter, Grace — his only 
daughter at that time — died, on the 23d of January, 1817. 
Her sickness and subsequent death, detained him from his 
seat in Congress during the month of January. 

On the risinor of Confess, Mr. Webster returned to Bos- 
ton, and entered with diligence on the labors of his profession. 

And these labors were both arduous and incessant ; they 
were also lucrative. Clients crowded numerously upon him, 
bringing copious fees. He had not been two years in Boston, 
before his income from his professional practice was greater 
than that of any lawyer of his time, or any that had preceded 
him. His reputation grew with his means ; and no one of his 
profession had before him such a brilliant and remunerating, 
if laborious, prospect. 



CHAPTEK III. 

Notwithstanding the engrossing nature of Mr. "Web- 
ster's professional pursuits, he found occasional time, " vacare 
Musis^^ — to gratify that love of reading and general acqui- 
sition, which has grown with his growth and strengthened with 
his strength. He also found time to comply with the earnest 
wishes of friends, who sought his contribution to the cause of 
history and literature. Belonging to such, is the Discourse he 
delivered at Plymouth, in December, 1820. It is not pro- 
posed to analyse this celebrated production here. Every one 
has read it who knows how to read, or what to read. But it 
may not be inopportune to introduce a remarkable prediction 
contained in it. Speaking of the energy, the enterprise and 
success of the natives of New England, the orator says : " It 
may be safely asserted, that there are now more than a million 
of people, descendants of New England ancestry, living free 
and happy, in regions, which hardly sixty years ago were 
tracts of unpenetrated forest. Nor do rivers, or mountains, 
or seas resist the progress of industry and enterprise. Ere 
longy the sons of the Pilgrims will he on the shores of the 
Pacific.'^'' 



60 CHAPTER III. 

It is but one of the many instances of far-reaching vision, 
amounting, indeed, to what the Scotch call second-sight^ Mr. 
Webster has, on various occasions, exhibited. The compre- 
hension of the Future from the study of the Past distinguishes, 
in truth, the man of intellect from the crowd : in ancient 
times it made the prophet ; in modern, it forms the statesman. 

Mr. Webster was not permitted to remain long undisturbed 
in the enjoyment of professional eminence and domestic com- 
fort. Private friendship and State pride alike sought gratifi- 
cation in his return to the National councils. He had not 
been two years in his adopted State before he was urged, ve- 
hemently, by repeated application of friends to be a candidate 
for the House. On his refusal, an election to the Senate of 
the United States was offered him on the part of his friends in 
the Legislature. The present Chief Justice Shaw and late 
Judge Hubbard, both then distinguished members of the 
Legislature, called upon him at Dorchester, where he then 
was passing the summer, with this invitation. These various 
applications he entirely declined, seeking to devote himself 
exclusively to the practice of the Law. Attaining to the 
highest professional distinction, and emoluments, not only ade- 
quate to, but beyond his wants, he had enough for ambition, 
and could not look elsewhere safely for happiness. He fol- 
lowed his profession with a devotion that knew no interruption 
save from necessary relaxation. What time he could spare 
from the throng of clients, he resorted to field sports and 
rural exercise ; nor did they profit less than himself from such 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 61 

occasional diversion. This, in truth, might be pronounced 
the most equable, and, perhaps, the most contented period of 
his life. 

He was not insensible, however, to the calls of public duty. 
Besides serving a few weeks as member of the Legislature, he 
was an elector of President and Vice-President, at Mr. Mun- 
roe's second election in 1820, and also a delegate to the con- 
vention chosen to revise the Constitution of Massachusetts, in 
1821. 

In this convention he acted no unimportant part. In 
truth, it may be said, that there were few if any measures of 
much consequence adopted by it, which did not bear the im- 
press of his mind. He encountered in this convention men 
of the Commonwealth, most eminent for their knowledge of 
the history and philosophy of legislation and jurisprudence, 
among whom it certainly cannot be invidious to mention the 
venerated name of John Adams. This renowned patriot, 
sage, and statesman was drawing fatally near the close of life, 
but his last, as his earliest, thought was his country's. He 
had rocked the cradle of the Nation, and protected its infancy ; 
and now that it had gained firmness of limb and muscular 
vigor, and could go alone, he still held over it an afiectionate, 
and paternal care. Greatness and goodness attended upon him 
and ministered to his happiness. " Possessing," says Mr. 
Webster of him, *' all his faculties to the end of his lono- life, 
with an unabated love of reading and contemplation, in the 
pentre of interesting circles of friendship and aflfection, he was 



62 CHAPTER III. 

blessed in his retirement, with whatever of repose and felicity 
the condition of man allows."* 

The Convention was indeed distinguished for the great array 
of intellect and public experience contained in it. 

Mr. Webster took an active part in its proceedings, and 
made a number of energetic speeches in it ; one upon a reso- 
lution relative to oaths of office ; another upon a resolution to 
divide the State into districts, for the choice of Senators ac- 
cording to population ; and a third upon the removal of judi- 
cial officers by the Governor and Council. These speeches, as 
their subjects would seem to require, were almost wholly ar- 
gumentative. There was no need of rhetoric, and no oppor- 

* In conversation once with Mr. Webster, he spoke to me of his last 
interview with Mr. Adams, which I give in as much as I recollect of 
his words : " I remember," he said, " the last time I ever saw Mr. 
Adams. It was the day I delivered the Discourse on the laying of the 
corner stone on Bunker Hill. I called to see him, to pay my respects to 
him, on my vray home. 

" It was a hot, sultry day in June. I found him lying on a sofa, ap- 
parently fatigued, and breathing not without difficulty. He had become 
fat, heavy, and unwieldy ; his flesh hung down his face, full and flabby. 

" He had an original nervous way of expressing himself, even in ordi- 
nary conversation. He always said something which you could after- 
wards recollect. 

" While I was with him, and conversing on the common topics of the 
day, some one — a friend of his — came in and made particular enquiry 
of his health. ' I am not well,' he replied. ' I inhabit a weak, frail, 
decayed tenement ; battered by the winds, and broken in upon by the 
storms ; and from all I can learn^ the landlord does nnt intend to repair? " 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 63 

tunlty for the display of eloquence. On one occasion, Low- 
ever, Mr. Webster was provoked into something more impas- 
sioned and agitating than simple argument. It was in reply 
to a member, who had said that classifying towns for the choice 
of representatives, instead of giving every town a representa- 
tive, however small its population, was forging chains and fet- 
ters for the people of Massachusetts. " Chains aTid fetters !" 
said Mr. Webster. " This convention of delegates, chosen by 
the people within this month, and going back to the people 
divested of all power within another month, yet occupying their 
space of time here in forging chains and fetters for themselves 
and their constituents ! ^ Chains and fetters !' A popular 
assembly, of four hundred men, combining to fabricate these 
manacles for the people — and nobody but the honorable mem- 
ber from Worcester with sagacity enough to detect the horrible 
conspiracy, or honesty enough to disclose it ! * Chains and 
fetters !' An assembly most variously composed — men of all 
professions and all parties — of different ages, habits, and asso- 
ciations — all freely and recently chosen by their towns and 
districts ; yet this assembly in one short month contriving to 
fetter and enslave itself and its constituents ! Sir, there are 
some things too extravagant for the ornament and decoration 
of oratory ; some things too excessive even for the fictions of 
poetry ; and I am persuaded that a little reflection would have 
persuaded the honorable member, that when he speaks of this 
assembly as committing outrages on the rights of the people, 
and as forging chains and fetters for their subjugation, he does 



64 CHAPTER III. 

as ^reat injustice to his own character as a correct and manly 
debater, as he does to the motives and intelligence of this body." 

These remarks, and especially the manner and countenance 
with which they were pronounced, somewhat excited the usually 
phlegmatic assembly ; many persons, then members, yet like 
to speak of the effect which they produced. 

Mr. Webster's reputation daily augmenting as an orator and 
statesman, the desire on the part of his political friends to re- 
turn him to Congress grew stronger and stronger ; till at length, 
in the fall of 1822, a Committee, consisting of Col. Thos. H. 
Perkins, Wm. Sturgis, Wm, Sullivan, John T. Apthorp and 
Daniel Messinger, called on him, with the information that he 
had been agreed upon as candidate for Representative to Con- 
gress. Col. Perkins read to him the vote by which he was 
nominated in the Convention, and the letter which was drawn 
up to accompany the vote ; and, saying that he had been in- 
structed by the Convention to bring back no answer, retired 
with the rest of the Committee. 

This severe and continued pressure finally overcame Mr. 
Webster's objections. He had declined with no Richard-like 
reluctance, eager to grasp what he seemed desirous to refuse, 
but from an honest, sincere, heart-felt reluctance. He knew, 
on entering public life again, he must abandon professional 
emoluments and domestic comfort. What honors he had al- 
ready attained to in National Councils were sufl5cient to fill his 
ambition ; and he saw nothing in any prospect, however bril- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 65 

liant, of political life, to compensate for the sacrifice he needs 
must make to secure it. 

Others would enjoy his labors. It seems the destiny of 
Genius to pursue unrequited toil, at least of that genius that 
labors in public affairs. There are services, too, that money 
cannot inspire nor compensate. The statesman may originate 
and digest a commercial code that gives competency and wealth 
to thousands — enhancing an hundred-fold the prosperity of his 
country. He may declare and conduct a necessary war, to 
secure its rights and extend its dominion ; or establish a per- 
manent and honorable peace, with countless attendant blessings. 
He may open new marts for native industry, suggest new 
channels for enterprising labor, foster new inventions, and per- 
fect new arts, in the plentitude of his power and capacity. 
Under him, a new spirit of enterprise may spring up ; new 
sources of wealth, hitherto unexplored, be revealed ; and all 
the great interests of society receive an impulse that can com- 
prise no definition nor limit. But the prosperity of his country 
is his own martyrdom. For her greatness he sacrifices per- 
sonal independence, domestic charities, health, and, too often, 
life itself. Pitt died at the age of forty-seven, overwhelmed 
with debt. He gave his country a position far above the 
powers of Europe and the world, and she gave him a funeral. 
Fox went down to the tomb, overtasked and worn-out, in mind 
and body. While the wounded sensibilities of Canning, ex- 
cited almost to phrenzy by the proud man's contumely and the 
base man's ingratitude, could find no solace but in the grave. 



66 CHAPTER III 

Yet grateful England showers upon her well-deserving ser- 
vants places, and pensions, and titles ; compensating, in the 
eyes of the unthinking multitude, perhaps, for broken health 
and shortened life. All England can do, at least she does with 
no niggard hand, but with a generosity becoming her history 
and greatness." All may not bring satisfaction to the bruised 
spirit, but it averts the charge of ingratitude from her. 

In this country the statesman, who, by thought, word, or 
action, gains ascendancy for a policy or party, may add vast 
augmentation to the wealth of the country, and enable cool, 
plodding, enterprising individuals, by the accumulation of large 
fortunes, to obtain a seat in Congress, in the Cabinet, or even 
a Foreign Mission. But what does he gain for himself, for all 
his transcendant ability and service ? Injurious accusations, 
while living ; and in death, at best, a doubtful eulogy. 

But Mr. Webster yielded to the importunate solicitations of 
friends, and was elected Representative to Congress from the 
city of Boston, in the fall of '22, by 1000 majority over Jesse 
Putnam. 

Returning to the House, he found the Chair occupied, as he 
had left it, by Henry Clay. Other familiar faces he also met, 
and felt quite at home. Early in the session the question of 
the G-reek Revolution was agitated ; and on the 8th of Decem- 
ber, 1823, Mr. Webster presented the following resolution, in 
the House of Representatives : " Resolved, That provision 
ought to be made, by law, for defraying the expense incident 
to the appointment of an Agent or Commissioner to Greece, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 67 

whenever the President shall deem it expedient to make such 
appointment." In introducing this resolution, Mr. Webster 
made an appropriate speech, in the beginning of which he 
said : " We must, indeed, fly beyond the civilized world ; we 
must pass the dominion of law, and the boundaries of knowledge ; 
we must, more especially, withdraw ourselves from this place, 
and the scenes and objects which here surround us, if we would 
separate ourselves entirely from all those memorials of herself 
which ancient Greece has transmitted for the admii-ation and 
the benefit of mankind. This free form of government, this 
popular assembly, the common council held for the common 
good, where have we contemplated its earliest models } This 
practice of free debate and public discussion, the contest of 
mind with mind, and that popular eloquence, which, if it were 
now here, on a subject like this, would move the stones of the 
Capitol, — whose was the language in which all these were first 
exhibited ? Even the edifice in which we assemble, these pro- 
portioned columns, this ornamental architecture, all remind us 
that Grreece has existed, and that we, like the rest of mankind, 
are greatly her debtors But I have not introduced this motion 
in the vain hope of discharging any of this accumulated debt 
of centuries. I have not acted upon the expectation that we, 
who have inherited this obligation from our ancestors, should 
now attempt to pay it to those who may seem to have inherited, 
from their ancestors, a right to receive payment. What I have 
to say of Greece concerns the modern, not the ancient ; the 
living, and not the dead. It regards her, not as she exists in 



68 CHAPTER III. 

history, triumpliant over time, and tyranny, and ignorance, 
but as she now is, contending, against fearful odds, for being, 
and for the common privilege of human nature." 

In the course of his remarks he alluded in terms of severe, 
but just reprobation, to the character of the Treaty concluded 
at Paris in 1815, between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, com- 
monly known under the title (assumed, one might suppose, in 
bitter mockery,) of " The Holy Alliance." Mr. Webster said, 
he wanted words to express his abhorrence of the abominable 
principles proclaimed in the preamble to this Alliance, the 
establishment of which was menaced by a million and a half 
of bayonets. " Human liberty may yet, perhaps," said he, 
" be obliged to repose its principal hopes on the intelligence 
and the vigor of the Saxon race. So far as depends on us, at 
least, I trust those hopes will not be disappointed." 

To the question as to what this nation should do ; whether 
we should declare war for the sake of Greece, and if not, if we 
would neither furnish armies nor navies, what we should do ; 
what was in our power } he replied, in some of the happiest 
language even he ever commanded : " Sir, this reasoning mis- 
takes the age. The time has been, indeed, when fleets, and 
armies, and subsidies were the principal reliances even in the 
best cause. But, happily for mankind, there has arrived a 
great change in this respect. Moral causes come into consi- 
deration, in proportion as the progress of knowledge is ad- 
vanced ; and the public opinion of the civilized world is rapidly 
gaining an ascendancy over mere brutal force. It may be si- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 69 

lenced by military power, but it cannot be conquered. It is 
elastic, irrepressible, and invulnerable to the weapons of ordi- 
nary warfare. It is tbat impassable, inextinguishable enemy 
of mere violence and arbitrary rule, which, like Milton's angels, 

' Vital in every part, 
Cannot, but by annihilating, die.' 

Unless this be propitiated or satisfied, it is in vain for power 
to talk either of triumphs or repose. No matter what fields 
are desolated, what fortresses surrendered, what armies sub- 
dued, or what provinces overrun, there is an enemy that still 
exists to check the glory of these triumphs. It follows the 
conqueror back to the very scene of his ovations ; it calls upon 
him to take notice that the world, though silent, is yet indig- 
nant ; it shows him that the sceptre of his victory is a barren 
sceptre ; that it shall confer neither joy nor honor, but shall 
moulder to dry ashes in his grasp. In the midst of his exul- 
tation, it pierces his ear with the cry of injured justice ; it de- 
nounces against him the indignation of an enlightened and 
civilized age ; it turns to bitterness the cup of his rejoicing, 
and wounds hmi with the sting which belongs to the con- 
sciousness of having outraged the opinion of mankind.'' 

President Monroe in his annual message to Congress, at the 
commencement of the session, had expressed a warm sym- 
pathy for the Greeks, in their struggle for independence ; and 
Mr. Webster's motive and action contemplated some recipro- 
cation of his sentiments, on the part of the House, so far as it 
should approve them. His resolution was designed to have 



70 CHAPTER III. 

this effect, and no more. It failed, however, of favorable ac- 
tion. It took the House too much by surprise, accustomed 
rather to propositions of a temporary and local character. 

Mr. Webster made one other great speech, during this Con- 
gress, upon a question of more domestic nature. It was 
upon the Tariff of 1824 — which he opposed on the ground of 
expediency solely. The philosophic or economical character 
of this speech may be, in part, judged of from one quotation : 
" There is a broad and marked distinction,'' he said, " be- 
tween entire prohibition, and reasonable encouragement. It is 
one thing by duties or taxes on foreign articles, to awaken a 
home competition in the production of the same articles ; it is 
another thing to remove all competition by a total exclusion 
of the foreign article ; and it is quite another thing still, by 
total prohibition, to raise at home manufactures not suited to 
the climate, the nature of the country, or the state of the 
population. These are substantial distinctions, and although 
it may not be easy in every case, to determine which of them 
applies to a given article, yet the distinctions themselves 
exist, and, in most cases, will be sufficiently clear to indicate 
the true course of policy." 

Notwithstanding, however, the opposition of Mr. Webster, 
and the Massachusetts Representatives generally, the bill 
passed into a law, and New England was obliged to conform 
her temper and business to its operation. 

In the fall of this year, 1824, Mr. Webster was re-elected to 
Congress, receiving 4,990 votes of the 5,000 thrown — an en- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 71 

dorsement by popular favor probably without precedent in the 
annals of our political contests. 

In the fall of this year, too, came off the election of Presi- 
dent. Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Wm. H. 
Crawford and Henry Clay, were all candidates, and all re- 
ceived electoral votes for the Presidential office. The three 
first were returned to the House of Eepresentatives, as being 
the three highest candidates ; General Jackson, by an em- 
phatic plurality of votes that indicated, beyond the enter- 
tainment of a doubt, his superior popularity. The potent ia- 
fluence, however, of Mr. Clay in the House was exerted in 
favor of Mr. Adams ; and secured for him, in that body, a 
constitutional election. No intelligent man in the country be- 
lieves that Mr. Adams' success was the consequence of any 
previous arrangement between himself and Mr. Clay, by which 
the latter, in such event, should become Secretary of State. 
Every candid man, on the contrary, will coincide in the 
opinion, expressed by Mr. Webster in relation to the subject, 
soon after the in-coming of the administration, in a speech at 
Fanueil Hall : " He would take this occasion to say, if his 
opinion could be of any value in such a case, that he thought 
nothing more unfounded than that that gentleman (Mr. Clay) 
owed his present position to any unworthy compromise or ar- 
rangement whatever. He owed it to his talent, to his promi- 
nent standing in the community, to his course of public service, 
not now a short one, and the high estimation in w^hich he 
stands with that part of the country to which he belongs." 



72 CHAPTER III. 

It is not to be denied, however, that many of Mr. Clay's 
friends regretted his acceptance of the highest ofl&ce in Mr. 
Adams' administration, — because such acceptance involved 
the awkward necessity of an explanation. A suspiciouj they 
thought, would attach to his motives, and always attend his 
position ; and suspicion, they knew, often produced results as 
fatal to character as proven criminality. Like a reckless 
spendthrift, some held — he had secured a temporary gratifica- 
tion by the sacrifice of a certain, brilliant, and not distant. 
Future. 

The question that most agitated the politics of the country 
during Mr. Adams' administration, was the Panama Mis- 
sion ; a succinct historical account of which may not be im- 
pertinent here. 

In the month of December, 1823, a formal invitation was 
addressed by Spain to the Courts of St. Pctersburgh, Vienna, 
Berlin, and Paris, proposing to hold a conference at Paris, in 
order that the plenipotentiaries there convened, might assist 
Spain in adjusting the affairs of her revolted colonies in South 
America. 

The proposed meeting, however, did not take place — per- 
haps in consequence of the decided course adopted by Mr. 
Canning on the part of England — who, in a conference with 
the French minister in London, declared distinctly and em- 
phatically, that England would consider any foreign inter- 
ference, whether by arms or intimidation, in the contest be- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 73 

tween Spain and her revolted colonies, as a conclusive reason 
for immediately recognising the independence of the latter. 

It was under these circumstances, and at this crisis, that 
Mr. Monroe's justly celebrated declaration was made ; that 
our government would consider any combination of European 
Powers to effect objects, whether of colonization or otherwise, 
in America, as affecting ourselves : that we should re^^ard such 
combination as dangerous to ourselves, and should be prepared 
to meet it accordingly. This declaration had been agreed upon 
unanimously in Mr. Monroe's Cabinet after great deliberation, 
Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Crawford concurring in it with Mr. 
Adams. It met, too, with the entire concurrence of the 
country, as wise, seasonable, and patriotic. In England, 
also, it was received with no little enthusiasm. In the House 
of Commons, the leading minister expressed his full concur- 
rence in the sentiments and opinions of the President, while 
his distinguished competitor in that body, of an opposite poli- 
tical party, declared that " no event had ever created greater 
joy, exultation, and gratitude, among the free men of Europe; 
that he felt a pride in being connected, by blood and language, 
with the people of the United States ; that the policy dis- 
closed by the message, became a great, a free, and an inde- 
pendent nation ; and that he hoped his own country would be 
prevented by no mean pride or paltry jealousy, from following 
so noble and glorious an example." 

" I look on the message of December, 1823," said Mr. 

Webster, in the House of Representatives, "as forming a 
4 



74 CHAPTER III. 

briglit page in our history. I will neither help to erase it, or 
tear it out ; nor shall it be, by any act of mine, blurred or 
Hotted. It does honor to the sagacity of the government, and 
I will not diminish that honor. It elevated the hopes, and 
gratified the patriotism of the people. Over those hopes I will 
not bring a mildew ; nor will I put that gratified patriotism to 
shame." 

The allies were deterred from taking any measures in con- 
cert with Spain for the subjugation of her colonies ; but their 
menacimr attitude for a time had alarmed the colonies them- 
selves, and awakened the suspicions of our Government. 

The Panama Mission seemed to be a corollary of President 
Monroe's message, to follow as a proper inference from the 
postulate, that American governments should have sole con- 
trol of American interests. It proposed no belligerent mea- 
sures ; no departure from the neutral policy of the United 
States. It contemplated only a negotiation with the ministers 
of other American Kepublics, assembled in Congress at 
Panama, upon commercial and international relations. What- 
ever should be agreed upon in the Congress, was to be of no 
obligatory force whatever, or anywhere, unless afterwards duly 
ratified by their respective governments. 

Mr. Webster, who had warmly approved the message of 
President Monroe, thought himself called upon to support a 
mission which seemed the legitunate result of its reasoning ; 
and, in April, 1826, made an able speech upon the character 
and purposes of the mission. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 75 

It was unpopular, however, in the country ; less, doubtless, 
from the nature of the objects it proposed to accomplish, than 
from the construction of the Administration which recom- 
mended it. 

At the present day there is, probably, not a sentiment of 
the speech Mr. Webster made on the subject which would not 
meet the entire and hearty concurrence of four-fifths of the 
nation. The policy of Mr. Adams' Administration, in this 
respect, has outlived its general unpopularity. 

It was in the summer of this year that Mr. Webster de- 
livered his discourse in commemoration of the lives and ser- 
vices of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. It would be in 
vain to look elsewhere for eulogies, expressed in more glowing 
and elevated language, or more appropriate to their subjects. 
The funeral orations of Bossuet, deservedly so celebrated, 
have not the repose, the dignity, nor sublimity of this. It 
sounds like a solemn anthem throughout. " Although no 
sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved 
stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance 
be as lasting as the land they honored. Marble columns may, 
indeed, moulder into dust, time may erase all impress from 
the crumbling stone, but their fame remains; for with 
American Liberty only can it perish. It was the last 
swelling peal of yonder choir, ' Their bodies are buried 

IN PEACE, but their NAME LIVETH EVERMORE.' I catch 

that solemn song, I echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph, 
' Their name liveth evermore.' " 



76 CHAPTER III. 

The speecli Mr. Webster has put into the mouth of John 
Adams in this funeral oration, as having been delivered by 
him in the Phihidelphia Convention, in 1776, commencing, 
" Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand 
and my heart to this vote," has been often mistaken for the 
production of Mr. Adams himself: it follows so inimitably 
Mr. Adams' style and forcible expression, Mr. Webster has 
been applied to, on several occasions, and by persons of liter- 
ary pretensions, to know where and when Mr. Adams delivered 
the speech. 

The address on laying the corner-stone of Bunker-Hill 
monument was made a year before, in 1825. It is too 
familiar to every one, to require even allusion to it. 

In November, 1826, Mr. Webster was again re-elected to 
Congress, and by a vote of almost entire unanimity ; but be- 
fore he took his seat, under this canvass, he was chosen Sena- 
tor of the United States, in place of the ever-lamented Elijah 
H. Mills, retired from ill health.* 

The lives of literary characters or statesmen seem to be but, 
after all, an account of their productions and speeches. They 
appear to have no domestic life ; or none, which is not ab- 
sorbed in the engrossing nature of their pursuits. Mr. Web- 
ster's political life, however, has been varied by his professional 

=* According to the records, the vote of the Legislature stood thus : in 
the Senate, Daniel Webster had 26 votes; John Mills, 11 ; Edward 
Everett, 1 ; Levi Lincoln, 1. In the House, Daniel Webster had 202; 
John Mills, 82 ; scattering, 44. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 77 

avocations, and mitigated as before mentioned bj bis addic- 
tion to agricultural and rural occupations. In this latter re- 
spect, it has resembled Edmund Burke's, who was distin- 
guished hardly less as an agriculturist than as a statesman and 
orator. 

Mr. Webster had been obliged to relinquish a large por- 
tion of his practice — some of the most lucrative — by his re- 
entrance into public life. But in most important cases, he 
was still retained, particularly in such as were to receive final 
disposition in the Supreme Court of the United States. Of 
such, among others, was the famous case of Gibbons vs. Ogden, 
argued in the Supreme Coui't,in 1824, when the constitutional 
power of Congress to regulate commerce, as a sole and ex- 
chisive power J was insisted upon and triumphantly established 
by Mr. Webster— the judgment of the Court, as pronounced 
by Chief Justice Marshal, following closely the line of his 
argument. In this argument, he made use of the expression, 
u7iU, as applicable to the commerce of the United States, 
which General Jackson afterwards borrowed to describe the 
character of his Cabinet. Speaking of the relinquishment by 
States, of their former powers over commerce, to the general 
government, he said: "Henceforth, the commerce of the 
States was to be an miit ; and the system by which it was to 
exist and be governed must necessarily be complete, entire, 
and uniform. Its character was to be described in the flag 
which waved over it, e pluribus unum." 

Other cases of moment Mr. Webster conducted in the 



78 CHAPTER III. 

Supreme Court, -which added to his reputation and income. It 
is not necessary to particularize them here. 

Nor was Mr. Webster's public life unvaried by domestic 
calamities ; which visit, without respect to persons, the families 
of the hio-h as well as humble. The death of his daus^hter 
some years previous has already been alluded to : towards the 
close of this year, 1827, a still greater affliction fell upon him, 
in the loss of his wife. He was on his way to Washington, 
when she died. Her illness and subsequent decease prevented 
him from taking his seat in the Senate till January, '28. 

In that august body, there were already men of national 
eminence. Besides Mr. Calhoun, who occupied the chair, and 
Mr. Forsyth, of Georgia, both of whom Mr. Webster had left 
the year before in the House, and with whom, in equal en- 
counter he had measured swords, and Mr. Van Buren, more 
distinguished afterwards ; there were Benton and Barton, of 
Missouri, — colleagues, but hostile, of great but opposite 
qualities — Woodbury and Bell, of New Hampshire, worthy 
Senators, — Tazewell and Tyler, of A^irginia, ever in pursuit of 
abstractions, till they almost became such themselves*, — Clay- 
ton of Delaware, Burnet of Ohio, and Hayne, whose name 
needs no local designation. There were others, if not all 
of equal position in the country, all worthy of commemora- 
tion. 

Mr. Webster's first encounter in the Senate was with Mr. 
Tazewell, upon the Process Billy for regulating the proceedings 
of the United States Courts. The speeches were rather of a 



DANIEL WEBSTER. '79 

professional character, and there is little in them, or any in- 
cident connected with theii' delivery, to interest the general 
reader. 

Mr. Webster exerted himself warmly in getting through a 
bill for the relief of the surviving officers of the Revolution ; 
and, in Ai3ril of this year, made an earnest and effective speech 
in its favor. Speaking of the conduct and services of the 
Revolutionary army, he said : ''It had faithfully served and 
saved the country ; and to that country it now referred, with 
unhesitating confidence, its claim and its complaints. It laid 
down its arms with alacrity ; it mingled itself with the mass 
of the community ; and it waited, till in better times, and 
under a new government, its services might be rewarded, and 
the promises made to it fulfilled. Sir, this example is worth 
more, far more, to the cause of civil liberty, than this bill will 
cost us. We can hardly recur to it too often, or dwell on it 
too much, for the honor of our country, and of its defenders. 
Meritorious service in civil war is worthy of peculiar consider- 
ation ; not only because there is, in such war, usually less 
power to restrain irregularities, but because, also, they expose 
all prominent actors in them to different kinds of dan<^er. It 
is rebellion, as well as war. Those who engage in it must 
look not only to the dangers of the field, but to confiscation 
also, and ignominious death. With no efficient and settled 
government, either to sustain or to control them, and with 
every sort of danger before them, it is great merit to have 
conducted with fidelity to the country, under every discourage- 



go CHAPTER III. 

ment on the one hand, and with unconquerable "bravery to- 
wards the common enemy on the other. So, sir, the officers 
and soldiers of the Revolutionary army did conduct." 

Owing to the exertions of Mr. Webster, of Mr. Van Buren, 
and some other iniluential members, this bill of great remedial 
justice finally passed ; his aid in the success of which, Mr 
Webster has said, on some occasion since, is one of the most 
grateful of his Congressional recollections. 

At this session, a new Tariff bill passed : " the bill of 
abominations," as it was sometimes called. For the four 
years previous, New England had from mere necessity turned 
its attention to manufactures ; and large investments iiad been 
made in that direction. There seemed to the people of that 
section no alternative, but to consider the cause and policy of 
the government as determined and fixed, and to govern them- 
selves accordingly. 

This new bill contained provisions, which seemed of a vindic- 
tive character ; as if intended to punish such persons as bad 
derived benefit from the Tarifi" of '24, though compelled to 
adopt it against their wishes. 

" Sir," said Mr. Webster, in his speech on the passage of 
the bill — " I am sure there is nobody here, envious of the 
prosperity of New England, or who would wish to see it de- 
stroyed. But if there be such anywhere, I cannot cheer 
them by holding out the hope of a speedy accomplishment of 
their wishes. The prosperity of New England, like that of 
other parts of the country, may, doubtless, be affected inju- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 81 

riously by unwise or unjust laws. It may Ibe Impaired, espe- 
cially, by an unsteady and shifting policy, wbich fosters particu- 
lar objects to-day, and abandons tliem to-morrow. She may 
advance faster or slower; but the propelling principle, be 
assured, is in her ; deep, fixed, and active. Her course is on- 
ward and forward. The great powers of free labor, of moral 
habits, of general education, of good institutions, of skill, en- 
terprise, and perseverance are all working with her, and 
for her ; and on the small surface, which her population 
covers, she is destined, I think, to exhibit striking results of 
the operation of these potent causes, in whatever constitutes 
the happiness, or belongs to the ornament of human society." 

Notwithstanding the serious objections to the bill, Mr. 
Webster considered it his duty to vote for it, as the best alter- 
native. Its defeat, he thought, would have a much more 
calamitous effect upon the interests of the country generally 
than its adoption. 

He voted for it on the ground of expediency ; and, it is 
upon that alone, his argument in favor of its passage rests. 
In vain should we look in this speech for that philosophical 
research, that entire mastery of the principles of political 
economy, and that intimate acquaintance with commercial and 
financial affairs which distinguished his speech against the 
Tariff of 1824. The present occasion, however, and the sub- 
ject required less range of thought ; action seemed rather de- 
manded than argument ; canvassing than eloquence. 

Returning home at the end of the session, and meeting 

4* 



82 CHAPTER III. 

some portion of bis constituents in Faneuil Hall, Mr. "Web- 
ster made allusion to tbe necessity under wbicb he bad found 
himself placed, by a most strange and unprecedented manner of 
legislation, of taking tbe evil of a public measure for tbe sake of 
its good. " The candid interpretation," said he, " wbicb bad 
been given to that vote, by those who disapproved it, and tbe 
assembling together here, for tbe purpose of this occasion, of 
those who felt pain, as well as those who felt pleasure, at the 
success of the measure for which the vote was given, afford 
ample proof, how far unsuspected uprightness of intention, and 
the exercise of an indopendent judgment, may be respected, 
even by those who di^er from the results to which that exer- 
cise of judgment has arrived." 

Another presidential canvass took place in the autumn of 
this year, the competitors in which were Andrev^t Jackson 
and John Quincy Adams. The popular voice, which bad 
not invited Mr. Adams to the chair of state, precipitated him 
from it with emphatic utterance. On the 4th of March, 1829, 
General Jackson took possession of the vacated seat, with a 
temper not at all softened by the unnecessary delay of four 
years. 



We approach now tbe most important era of Mr. Webster's 
intellectual life ; in wbicb he gained, at once and for ever, tbe 
highest rank as a debater and orator. No previous production 
of his, of whatever eminent ability, had prepared the minds of 
men for the display of such a vast variety of genius as be ex- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 83 

Libited in this greatest intellectual contest of tLe age. He 
liad always been equal to the occasion, it is true, but be had 
never hitherto encountered an occasion that demanded such 
infinite resources. 



CHAPTER IV. 

To understand fully the character and importance of the 
Great Debate, as it was called in the newspapers of the 
day, something should be known of the circumstances that 
immediately preceded and accompanied it, and of the more 
distinguished persons who participated in it. 

It commenced, in the Senate of the United States, in the 
month of January, 1830, during the first session of the 21st 
Congress, and in the first year of the administration of 
Andrew Jackson ; and lasted, with occasional but brief inter- 
ruptions, four months. 

Few persons ever attained to eminent position in this or any 
other country, under more auspicious circumstances, than 
Andrew Jackson. The idol of a party comprising much the 
larger portion of the constituency of the country, respected 
for the many liberal qualities of his head and heart, even by 
those who on conviction, or from interest, had opposed his 
elevation, this distinguished soldier in the earlier portion of 
his ofiicial career, gave assurance of an administration, equally 
brilliant and popular. In the presidential campaign of 1828, 
bis competitor and immediate predecessor, John Quincy 



DANIEL WEBSTER. g5 

Adams, whether from geographical position, or from a want of 
confidence among the masses in the policy of his measures or 
pm-ity of his intentions, or, more probable yet, from personal 
unpopularity, arising from a cold temperament and repulsive 
manners, had been signally and disgracefully defeated. No 
where, save in New England, and even there, perhaps, rather 
from local pride, than attachment to his person, or respect for 
his public character, had his canvass for re-election been 
honestly sustained. Elsewhere his efforts and those of his par- 
tisans .had been vehemently rebuked. General Jackson re- 
ceived a majority in the electoral colleges unprecedented in 
the previous annals of party contention. . 

Undoubtedly one great reason of Mr Adams' unpopularity, 
was his cold, antipathetic manner, and the suspicion of selfish- 
ness it suggested, or at least aided greatly to confirm. None 
approached Mr. Adams but to recede. He never succeeded, 
he never tried to conciliate. He seemed one of those persons 
— not rare on earth — whose enjoyment stops in themselves ; 
who find no pleasure in the indulgence of social feelings, and 
cherish no hope but of self-gratification. Friendship which 
receives and repays mutual benefits, which responds alike to 
good or adverse fortune, which removes us from enture isola- 
tion, expands the heart, lends new force to genius, and a nobler 
expression to thought, he never seemed capable of compre- 
hending. 

His mmd, wonderfully precocious, was developed at the ex- 
pense of his heart. Undue exercise of the one, as happens 



86 CHAPTER IV. 

with the limbs of the body, dwarfed or weakened the other. 
He could elaborate vast schemes of political aggrandizement, 
construct stupendous tomes of incontrovertible logic, establish 
or demolish theories of perplexing ingenuity ; but he was ig- 
norant of an unselfish emotion, incapable of an ennobling ex- 
pression, and constitutionally insensible to other than personal 
hopes and purposes. 

All political dogmas, creeds and parties, were held by him 
in like consideration. He found them all equally fallacious and 
equally useful. He sacrificed no principle in espousing or re- 
pudiating cither or all, for he had no principles to sacrifice. 
Without violence to his feelings or judgment, he admitted or 
rejected propositions and measures. He knew but one test of 
their soundness ; how far they were useful, so far and so long 
they were right. In whatever other respect he resembled Cato 
Uticaensis, in one he differed from him materially. The victa 
causa never pleased kim. The theory that failed was to him 
illogical ; the party that fell, unprincipled. 

This intense concentration of self upon self gave character 
to his countenance, manners, and habits. He seemed as cold, 
passionless and inscrutable as the Egyptian Sphynx, whose fate, 
too, his own resembled. He was successful while his secret 
was undiscovered, but that once exposed, he sunk for ever. 

A disposition like his was its own Nemesis. Ever grasping 
at honors, success rather exasperated than satisfied him. While 
there was a step still higher, he was restless, discontented, 
morose, till he reached it ; and when reached, the fear of its 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 87 

loss was greater than the pleasure of its enjoyment, and kept 
his mind in a constant turbulence. A want of sympatliy for 
others, deadened his own sense of his elevation ; he knew not 
the increase of gratification from reflection. His merit, he 
thought, provoked service, which, like virtue, was its own re- 
ward. He therefore felt no gratitude, and acknowledged in 
his favors no distinction between friend and enemy. Success 
made him ungrateful, and defeat vindictive ; the one he easily 
forgot, the other he never forgave. 

This harshness of character developed itself in his writings. 
Future ages no less than the present will suffer from its ex- 
pression. A severe and unyielding logic pervades and oppresses 
all his productions. There is nothing to move the aff'ections, 
to rouse the fancy, or open the heart, in any. In all the 
mighty volumes of lectures, essays, correspondence, state-papers 
and speeches with which he has terrified mankind, not a glo- 
rious sentiment, magnanimous idea, or soul-stirring expression 
occurs. They are all lava-like, destroying everything like 
fertilization. 

Such a character could secure no permanent popularity. It 
was only to be appreciated, to be hated ; and the historian will 
be compelled to record, among the most prominent causes of 
Mr. Adams' ultimate defeat, his selfish, cold, unsympathetic 
heart, characterizing manner and action. 

His successful competitor was cast in a different mould. 
Some virtues he had, and others he assumed. He was frank, 
affable, and impressionable ; and if not always sincere, always 



88 CHAPTER IV. 

had the appearance of sincerity. It was easier to pardon his 
vices, than to acknowledge the virtues of his rival ; the arro- 
gance of the latter offending self-love, more than the former 
the moral sense. 

It is not to be denied, however, that he had one element of 
popularity which his opponent needed. This was his brilliant 
military reputation. His courage and conduct in several severe 
emergencies, and more particularly in one crisis of our public 
affairs, during the last war with Grreat Britain, had gained 
him the confidence and gratitude of his countrymen. This 
element of strength had been sensibly felt in the preceding 
canvass, and was perhaps the best solution of the almost in- 
credible popularity which he enjoyed. 

Still his military achievements, dazzling as they were, did 
not constitute his sole claim to popular favor. He had filled 
high stations in civil life, in National as well as in State Grov- 
ernment ; in all of which he had given evidence of a deter- 
mined will, an honest purpose, and sagacious judgment, that 
commanded the good-will of all classes. His character for 
moral, physical, and intellectual energy was known everywhere. 
He was thought to possess, too, qualities of mind rare in their 
independent excellence, and only less than aniraculous in their 
combination. And hence there was a conviction, no more 
earnest than general, with the well-informed no less than with 
the vulgar, that he could cultivate with equal success the some- 
what hostile arts of war and peace. 

Everything, therefore, on his accession to power, seemed to 



DANIEL WEBSTER, 89 

promise its safe and long continuance. The aspect of the 
political sky was unclouded. The almost unanimity of the 
popular vote by which this hero-statesman was borne into the 
Piesidancy, ridiculed the very idea of opposition. Hardly a 
latent inclination remained to combat the measures of his ad- 
ministration : the ability to do so with success seemed gone 
for ever. 

Yet though the Administration had no cause of apprehension 
froni outward assault, persons boasting more than ordinary 
sagacity foresaw, or professed to foresee, the inevitable cause 
of future and even early perplexity, to its councils. They 
discovered it in the character of the political alliance that ob^ 
tained Gen. Jackson the Presidency 5 in the original forma- 
tion of this alliance ; its incongruous materials ; its compulsory 
cohesion ; and in the different ends proposed by its several 
constituent members. 

It is to be admitted, that two divisions of the Democratic 
party, professing and advocating doctrines diametrically oppo- 
site, had leagued together to consummate, in the election of 
Gen. Jackson, their own political ascendancy — one contending 
for such a construction of the Constitution as authorized Con- 
gress to protect domestic manufactures, appropriate money for 
works of internal improvement, and, generally, to regulate and 
control all interests strictly national ; the other, insisting upon 
a close, precise, narrow construction, which gave none but 
express powers, left nothing to inference or analogy. Of this 
latter division, the acknowledged head was Mr. Crawford, who 



90 CHAPTER IV. 

had himself been a candidate for the Presidency in 1824, but 
in 1828 had withdrawn his former pretensions, and gone in, 
with all his friends, personal and political, — the most distin- 
guished of whom was Mr. Yan Buren, — in unqualified support 
of Gen. Jackson. This powerful and opportune accession had 
contributed in a great degree to the singularly rapid augmen- 
tation of the G-eneraPs strength in the latter part of the canvass. 

The division or section that urG;ed a liberal construction of 
the Constitution, was at least as strong, from the position and 
ability of its leaders, and probably more so in the number of 
its rank and file. It had, beside, all the weight of precedent 
in its favor. It was a historical party. Its principles and 
policy had become firmly rooted in the public mind, from the 
countenance and furtherance they had met with from the two 
immediately preceding Administrations. Works of internal 
improvement, especially, had been recommended and carried 
out by the Administration of Mr. Monroe ; and his policy in 
this respect, as in most others, had not only been warmly sup- 
ported, but even extended by his immediate successor. 

Between these conflicting opinions it was contended. Gen. 
Jackson would be compelled to decide ; and it was predicted 
that his decision, which way soever it leaned, would neces- 
sarily disturb, if it did not completely destroy, the harmony 
of the party. 

The necessity, however, for an election between these two 
princi|)les had not yet arrived. Gen. Jackson was at this 
time sustained by a united, devoted and victorious party ; and 



DANIEL WEBSTER. Q\ 

nothing had occurred thus far in his administration to diminish 
the attachment or weaken the confidence of the people, in his 
person and character. 

On his accession, it seemed to he generally conceded that 
he would not be a candidate for re-election ; and, in conse- 
quence, the party was about equally divided between the rival 
pretensions of Messrs. Ccilhoun and Yan Buren. But how- 
ever ardent the jealousy, and unremitting the watchfulness 
each of these eminent statesmen maintained towards the other, 
no open demonstration of hostility affected their own relations, 
or disturbed the intimacy of their mutual friends. Whatever 
there was of dislike, distrust, and growing alienation between 
them was studiously concealed, on either part, from the public. 
Their bearing towards each other seemed candid, even cordial ; 
and from no outward indications could a suspicion of an ap- 
proaching rupture be conjectured. 

From the commencemeut of the administration up to the 
time of this debate, the most perfect understanding seemed to 
subsist between its distinguished chief, and the second officer 
of the Grovernment, Mr. Calhoun. The latter had done the 
former some service, and was supposed at this time to have 
done him more. In the Presidential sweepstakes of 1824, he 
had postponed his own candidatecy, and had aided, by his per- 
sonal and official influence, to secure for the General the 
nomination of Pennsylvania and its subsequent vote. In 
1S2G, he had continued and redoubled his exertions. He also 
claimed, through his friends, to have defended, in Mr. Mon- 



92 CHAPTER IV. 

roo's cabinet, Gen. Jackson's conduct in the Seminole war, 
and such at this time was the conviction of Gen. Jackson 
himself; who thus felt called upon from gratitude as well as 
from policy, to cultivate a close intimacy with the Vice Presi- 
dent, 

In consequence of this entente cordiale^ Mr. Calhoun's parti- 
sans were appointed to some of the most lucrative and respon- 
sible positions in the Government. Mr. Ingham, one of the 
most devoted to his person and political fortunes, was placed 
at the head of the Treasury, the most influential office in the 
appointment of the President. While no persons were re- 
ceived at the AVhite House with warmer cordiality than his 
nearest friends. Col. Haync, of South Carolina, deservedly 
one of the most cherished of them, was a frequent attendant 
and particular favorite there. In truth, so strict and confi- 
dential an intimacy prevailed between the two highest officers 
of the Government at this time, that persons supposed to be 
in the possession of Gen. Jackson's confidence have not hesi- 
tated since to declare, that but for the quarrel Van Buren 
and Forsyth contrived soon after to get up between them. 
Gen. Jackson would have embraced the political principles 
and furthered the aspirations of the Vice President. Such 
indeed was then the common expectation. It was fated 
however that the same disturbing element, by means of which 
Ilarley and St. John ejected Godolphin and jMarlborough 
from the councils and confidence of Queen Anne, should be, 
in the hands of men equally astute, the proximate cause of tlio 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 93 

rupture between Calhoun and Gen. Jackson. Dux famincb 
facti. 

Notwithstanding the immense majority of the suffrage, with 
which the administration had come into power, and the com- 
plete rout its opponents had sustained, it entertained towards 
the more prominent supporters of the late administration a 
mingled sentiment of vindictiveness and fear. There was no- 
thing in its conduct towards them of the forbearance becom- 
ing a victorious and magnanimous party ; on the contrary, 
their total annihilation seemed its dearest wish and only safe 
assurance of permanent establishment. The friends of the 
administration thought to pursue towards their chief oppo- 
nents the same policy Tarquinius Superbus dictated to his 
son, who had gained possession by unworthy arts of an impor- 
tant city : to cut off the heads of the most noted men of the 
place, that there might be no rallying names for the multitude. 
Suppressing, therefore, for the time all inimical purposes to- 
wards each other, Calhoun-men and Van Buren-men, radicals 
and conservatives, nourished a common dislike, and united in 
acts of common hostility, against the chiefs of the late admin- 
istration. 

Their rancor and purpose were particularly directed against 
Mr. Webster, the acknowledged leader of the Anti-elackson 
party in the Senate, whom they equally feared and hated. 
He had sustained the measures of the ]ate administration with 
zeal, energy, and efficiency ; had been its bulwark against all 
foes ; and it had leaned upon hmi for support. During the 



94 CHAPTER IV. 

recent canvass, too, he had heen most active in Mr. Adams' 
cause ; and by the warmth and vigor of his political action had 
controlled the nearly unanimous vote of New England against 
Gen. Jackson. The friends of the administration therefore 
could gratify, in his prostration, at once their animosity and 

their policy. 

Contemporaneous authority gives encouragement to a sus- 
picion that previous to the introduction of Foot's resolutions 
respecting the public lands, it had been determined by the 
leaders of the Jackson party to organize a crusade against Mr. 
Webster. The subsidized presses of the party were most 
violent in their abuse of his character, his history, and con- 
duct. Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay having been driven into re- 
tirement, there remained, in the ranks of the opposition, no 
one but Mr. Webster of suflScient position, to embarrass to any 
great extent the new dynasty. To revolutionize New Eng- 
land, too, was a purpose they meditated and avowed ; and, 
preparatory to its accomplishment, the overthrow of Mr. 
Webster seemed necessary. 

Whether such a conspiracy was ever matured or not, one 
fact is incontestible ; that the nearest and most powerful 
friends of both the Vice President and Secretary of State 
simultaneously attacked Mr. Webster, giving by the act to the 
world all the ordinary evidence of preconcerted purpose. 
Grundy and Livingston, Woodbury and Benton, Hayne, 
Rowan, and Forsyth, all participated in the onslaught. 

It was a combination of great power, from the character and 



DANIEL \VEB»TE«. 95 

position of the parties wlio composed it. They were all men 
of ability and reputation. Forsyth, it is true, took no open 
part in the discussion. He was none the less felt in the advice 
he gave, the information he afforded, and in the general direc- 
tion of the strategy of debate. He was quick, cool, and of 
infinite resources. 

Grrundy and Livingston leave other reputation than what 
they achieved in this debate. It is fortunate for their fame it 
is so. For though the part they performed therein was not 
discreditable, nor even undistinguished, their names gained 
from it no additional lustre. They were no ordinary antagonists 
in a dialectic contest. Their talents were of a high order. 
Both had gone through an earnest intellectual training, which, 
with their natural capacity for aflfairs, made them alike admir- 
able in speech or action. Grundy was, of all the Senate, 
nearest the President ; and the moral prestige of this relation 
gave a direction, a weight, a conclusion to his words, not 
rashly to be overlooked. He was prudent of speech, and gave 
no offence, either by inconsiderate language or monotonous 
frequency, in his Parliamentary efforts. It is true, he was 
rather a debater than an orator, and more specious than pro- 
found. But he knew how to detect and expose the weak 
points of an adverse argument, and by the refutation of an- 
other's sophisms, divert attention from his own. There was 
an earnestness, withal, in his manner and countenance that 
invited attention and encouraged belief. 

Livingston had a double claim to the respect of the Senate ; 



96 CHAPTER IV. 

from the past as well as the present. In earlier days, he had 
been the representative — the sole representative — of the first 
commercial city in the Union, and was now a Senator from 
one of its most flourishing, though youngest States, In both 
capacities known and respected as an honorable man, intelli- 
gent and candid, polished in language and manner, and of un- 
exceptionable character. He had seen a great diversity of 
character, of age, and institutions, and knew how to make his 
experience available, whether in the conduct of an argument, 
or in the establishment of a policy. Few Senators were held 
in greater esteem. He attacked no one ; he indulged in no vitu- 
perative language. He opposed or defended measures, but he 
never questioned motives, nor calumniated persons. In his 
political career, while he never was guilty of a partisan 
meanness, he had on more than one occasion, displayed a libe- 
rality of opinion and conduct seldom recorded of politicians. 
Jle had advocated the Panama Mission, though opposed to the 
administration of Mr. Adams ; an exhibition of moral courage 
that found few to praise and none to imitate it among his poli- 
tical associates. His reputation as a man of honorable bear- 
ing, cultivated intellect, and full experience in public life, 
preceding him to the Senate, gained him an influence there, 
which, from the day of his entrance, had daily increased. 

Nothing but merit, and merit of the highest order, could 
have raised Mr. Woodbury to the positions he has occupied in 
the country. Successively, Judge of the Superior Court of 
his native State, Senator in Congress, Secretary of two Depart- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 97 

ments, and Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States ; 
he has discharged the responsible duties of all these offices, if 
not with unequalled ability, most certainly with far more than 
ordinary capacity. He has better than realized the promise 
of his earlier days, and is in truth one of the rare examples of 
precocious talent confirmed and even strengthened in maturer 
as;e. But still he has not — he never had — the gift of elo- 
quence. It is not his — it never was — to rouse, to agitate, to 
control the passions. Never on any one occasion of his 
various and eminent life, at the bar, the hustings, or senate- 
chamber, has he gained full mastery of the heart ; ever pre- 
vailed upon his hearer to forget for one moment the speaker 
in his subject. His mind has rather a logical than imaginative 
character ; has been more employed in analysing than creat- 
ing. His sensibility has ever been subject to his reasoning 
faculties ; and he has been compelled by the absoluteness of 
his mental organisation, to prefer serious argumentation, and 
unfertilising facts to fancy, taste, or eloquence. 

Benton discharged all sorts of missiles at the head of an 
adversary, like a catapulta. Tropes, metaphors, similes, unsa- 
vory allusions, vituperative epithets, damnatory personalities, 
he hurled upon the victim of his temporary anger. He 
neither sought nor gave quarter ; one of the regular Black 
Hussars of debate. His manner, if possible, was yet more 
excited than his lantjuao-e ; and his voice more bellio-erent than 
either. His whole attitude was defiance, and each gesture a 
provocation An indifferent auditor might suppose from the 



98 CHAPTER IV. 

extravagance of his manner and language occasionally, that 
he was " running a muck." Hahet fcenum in cornu j wb.s at 
such times the proper solution of his conduct. 

His speech was as often extraordinary, as his manner. He 
brought together such a mass of crude, undigested, indigesti- 
ble compilations, overwhelming the subject-matter in its acci- 
dents, so much useless accumulation, disjointed and inconse- 
quent facts, impertinent allusions, and loose though labored 
analogies, one could not but imagine that he had made a foray 
into the territory of history, and seized upon booty, of which 
he neither knew the value, nor cared for the destination. 

Too often, whatever there was of invincible logic in his de- 
clamation, was lost in diffusive speech, in useless generalities, 
unconnected episodes, and uncalled-for personalities. His 
egotism at this time was almost ferocious ; it interpenetrated 
every part of his speech, and made it sometimes absurd, some- 
times farcical, and always offensive. But whenever for a time 
he forgot himself in his subject, and became wholly absorbed 
in its consideration, he was an antagonist not to be despised. 
He had read much, he had observed much, he had hoarded 
much ; and all he had read, observed, or hoarded he held at a 
moment's command. If he could but bring his facts and il- 
lustrations into line, so as to bear down in compact array upon 
the enemy's centre, he pierced it and secured victory. But it 
was unfortunate for him that his facts, undisciplined and irre- 
gular, hung back upon the very point of engagement, and re- 
coiled, like elephants in Indian armies, upon their own friends. 



^^* 
^ 



JSj' 



DANIEL WEBSTER. QQ 



^ I speak of him as he was. Twenty years have passed since 
. this debate took place. The closer study of mankind, of 
^ books, and himself, has liberalized his temper, chastened his 
^ style, and subdued his manner. He commits no such sole- 
cisms of thought or conduct as formerly. He arrogates less 
for his own position now, concedes more to his opponents'. 
His speech is less discursive and more argumentative ; it neo-- 
lects persons and embraces propositions ; is more suggestive, 
logical, and final. Still, though his deportment has more 
suavity, his manner more amenity, and his speech less person- 
ality than of old, he does not roar you now as gently an 'twere 
any nightingale. He is Boanerges still. 

On this occasion he headed the assault upon Mr. Webster, 
or, at least, upon New England. And it is not improbable 
that Mr. Webster had him in view, when in his second speech 
he spoke of "casting the characters of the drama, assigning to 
each his part : to one the attack, to another the cry of onset." 
A supposition the more likely, as Mr. Benton, in his speech, 
justified the suspicion that an onslaught upon New England 
and New England men, had been premeditated before the in- 
troduction of this debate. 

Rowan had some knowledge of Constitutional law, and 
boasted more. His distinctions, however, were too nice, too 
refined, too sublimated for comprehension. It is doubtful if 
he understood his own propositions ; it is certain none others 
could. His language^was all esoteric : yet if he failed in con- 
vincing his audience, he succeeded in puzzling them ; which 



100 CHAPTER IV. 

was a half-victory, like the battle of Fontenoy. It is besides 
impossible to answer what it is impossible to understand ; so 
that, like the cuttle-fish, he often escaped detection in a dark- 
ness of his own creation. 

His argument on this occasion was long and elaborate. Su- 
davit et alsity to make it impregnable. It was mostly, how- 
ever, tedious, illogical, inconsequent. Still there were fitful 
passages in it of indubitable merit, revealing some talent, and 

suggestive of more. 

Hayne dashed into debate, like the Mameluke cavalry upon 
a charge. There was a gallant air about him, that could not 
but win admiration. He never provided for retreat ; he never 
imagined it. He had an invincible confidence in himself, which 
arose partly from constitutional temperament, partly from pre- 
vious success. His was the Napoleonic warfare ; to strike at 
once for the capitol of the enemy, heedless of danger or cost 
to his own forces. Not doubting to overcome all odds, he 
feared none, however seemingly superior. Of great fluency 
and no little force of expression, his speech never halted, and 
seldom fatigued. 

His oratory was graceful and persuasive. An impassioned 
manner, somewhat vehement at times, but rarely if ever ex- 
travagant ; a voice well-modulated and clear ; a distinct, 
though rapid enunciation ; a confident, but not often offensive 
address ; these, accompanying and illustrating language well 
selected, and periods well turned, made him a popular and 
effective speaker. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 101 

His /or^e was, still, rather declamation than argument: of 
close, severe ratiocination, which rejects everything but what 
leads to conviction, he knew but little. He had never mas- 
tered the science of dialectics ; but he was not without a cer- 
tain kind of specious logic, which, with the multitude of lis- 
teners, would pass for current coin. It had the form, the 
impress, and superficial appearance of the pure metal : but it 
wanted weight on examination, and had no genuine ring in its 
sound. 

Col. Hayne was, incontestibly, the most formidable of Mr. 
Webster's opponents. He had more native and acquired 
ability than any of them. Such is the concurrent opinion of 
all who witnessed this great forensic contest ; among others, of 
the Hon. Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts ; who is himself no 
less distinguished as an orator, than for diplomatic ability and 
general acquirements. " It is unnecessary to state," says he, 
" except to those who have come forward quite recently, that Col. 
Hayne was a gentleman of ability very far above the average, 
a highly accomplished debater, an experienced politician, a 
person possessing the full confidence of his friends, and en- 
tirely familiar with the argument on which the theory con- 
troverted in Mr. Webster's speech rests." 

The Senate was prepared to receive him favorably. He had 
been distinguished in the politics of his own State, and sanguine 
anticipations were indulged in by his friends of his great suc- 
cess when transferred to a larger sphere of action. Before his 
speeches in this great controversy, he had occasionally addressed 



102 CHAPTER IV. 

the Senate, and displayed qualities of mind whicli seemed to 
justify all previous encomiums. He was, too, personally 
popular ; an advantage of no inconsiderable nature in whatever 
contest or undertaking a man is engaged with his fellows. His 
consciousness of the favor with which everything he says or 
does is received, gives him a confidence and an energy which 
stimulate to great words or deeds. 

Col. Hayne deserved his popularity. He had a courteous 
and frank address, conciliatory manners and deportment. He 
was high-minded and sincere ; easy and agreeable in conver- 
sation ; of great vivacity of intellect, and mercurial talent. 

Such was the formidable character of the combination Mr. 
Webster found himseif compelled by circumstances to meet. 
Never before, in Parliamentary annals, did one man encounter 
such fearful odds. The instance most like it, when Pulteney, 
and Pitt, and Littleton and Chesterfield, with others less dis- 
tinguished, united in a simultaneous attack upon Walpole, 
diifers in one important respect : Walpole had official position, 
the king's name, and a majority of the Commons in his favor 
— advantages that held him up even against intellectual supe- 
riority. Mr. Webster had nothing but himself to rely upon, 
with an equally powerful array against him. But both were 
intellectual combats, which, from the character of the actors 
and the various and momentous interests involved therein, 
have never been surpassed in any country or age. 

To publish all the speeches of this great debate would re- 
quire volumes. Still the debate itself would be hardly appre- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 103 

ciated but from reference to the actors in it. The drama 
could not be complete, with even the subordinate parts left 
out : there was no such insignificant character in it but aided, 
in some way the dtnouemtnt. 

The debate itself is a complete epic ; only instead of wars 
and combatants, we have argument and orators. It is not a 
vulgar exhibition of brute strength — a gladiatorial or pugilistic 
encounter ; but an intellectual struggle — the collison of mind 
with mind — the development of all the hio-hest intelligence in 
man. The principles and truths evolved from its consider- 
ation will endure with the country for which they were intended, 
exalting its character and ennobling its destiny. 



There were others of the Senate, less prominent before 
the public, of the dominant party, equally active in their 
exertions on this occasion : some of whom served as videttes, 
being thrown out in advance to gain and supply information 
respecting the enemy, and falling back upon the main body 
when battle joined. If the parts they performed were less 
distinguished than those of the persons enumerated, they 
seemed as necessary to success. Hardly a Senator of the 
dominant party but performed some duty on the occasion. 

It is besides to be considered that the whole moral influence 
of the administration was directed against Mr. "Webster. This, 
powerful at all times, was doubly so now. The iron will of 
Gen. Jackson subdued all minds to his : it penetrated and 
controlled every member of his administration or party, from 



104 CHAPTER IV. 

the highest to the lowest. There is a species of fascination in 
a severe, inflexible will, that few have the moral energy to re- 
sist. It seems to partake of the character of destiny, in the 
certain accomplishment of its pm^pose. It paralyses weaker 
minds, and makes them the puppets of its action. 

The one idea of Gen. Jackson's administration was devotion 
to himself. He allowed every variety of opinion and all free- 
dom of conduct consistent with this. He forgave all moral 
obliquities with plenary absolution. There was with him but 
one unpardonable sin : it was resistance to his will. 

He united in himself the whole force of his party He was 
the Democratic party, as Louis XIV. was " the State." 
When he came into power, Democracy had local significa- 
tions ; in one place it meant tariff, in another free trade ; — 
sometimes, " internal improvement," and sometimes, " strict 
construction." He gave it a definite name and character, 
which was not one in Georgia and another in Maine, but the 
same everywhere, of equal meaning and potency. The 
" Democratic" was lost in the Jackson party. 

He gave it unity, consistency, and rigor of action. He 
could concentrate it upon one point, with one will. No one 
ever had round him more devoted followers — for though harsh 
to his enemies, he was always true to his friends. He would 
exert his whole power, outstrip all constitutional restrictions 
to gratify a friend. And this was the great secret of his 
power. His fidelity to friendship passed into proverb, and 
gained him the great heart of the nation. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 105 

What could not such a man at the head of such a party 
accomplish of good or evil ? It is true, that so early in his 
administration, as the time now written of, he had not ob- 
tained the fearful ascendancy in the country or in Congress, 
as at a later period. But even now the influence of his 
character was deeply felt ; and had he chosen to put forth 
his whole strength in any one direction, the result at least 
miofht Ions; have remained doubtful. 

But it is due the memory of this distinguished patriot, sol- 
dier, and statesman to say, that he never entertained towards 
Mr. Webster any of that vehemence of personal bitterness, 
which he sometimes exhibited towards his opponents. He 
was of too mao-nanimous character to hate a mao-nanimous 
foe. Mr. Webster never flattered, deceived, or abused him j 
never opposed his measures, but in an honorable manner, and 
with respectful language. In the campaign that had just 
terminated, Mr. Webster, in warmly supporting the cause of 
his rival, was careful to use no harsh language of him, or his 
pretensions : on the contrary, upon more than one occasion, 
when circumstances seemed to require the mention of his name, 
had spoken, in terms of fit encomium, of his distinguished mili- 
tary services. The G-eneral, who never forgot a favor or an 
injury, and who was as ready to acknowledge courtesy as to 
avenge insult, nursed, therefore, no feeling of personal unkind- 
ness for Mr. Webster ; and the intercourse between these two 
eminent men at this time though not intimate nor cordial, 
5* 



106 CHAPTER IV. 

was not unfriendly. Gen. Jackson tolerated, it may be, but 
did not second the attack upon Mr. Webster. 

Still tbe Alliance used his name ; which was ^' a tower of 
strength" to them. It whipped in the refractory, confirmed 
the wavering, and terrified the timid. 



CHAPTER V. 

On the 29th day of December, 1829, Mr. Foote of Conn, 
offered, in the Senate of the United States, the following reso- 
lution : 

" Resolved, ihiit the Committee on Public Lands be instructed 
to enquire into the expediency of limiting for a certain period 
the sales of the public lands to such lands only, as have been 
heretofore offered for sale, and are subject to entry at the 
minimum price. Also, whether the office of Surveyor General 
may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest." 
Some skirmishing immediately occurred on the introduction 
of the resolution between Benton, Noble, Woodbury, Holmes, 
and Foote ; but no one imagined it was soon to be followed by 
a regular engagement. A motion being made and carried to 
postpone the consideration of the resolution till the next Mon- 
day, the excitement for the time subsided. 

When the resolution on the day specified came up for dis- 
cussion, Mr. Foote remarked that in twelve years' experience 
in legislative assemblies, it was not within his recollection that 
a resolution merely for enquiry had been made a special order. 
As he could not discover any benefit which could possibly 



108 CHAPTER V. 

arise from introducing this practice, he should decline giving 
it his sanction, bj taking the lead in the debate. 

Some insignificant discussion hereupon having taken place 
among Senators, the resolution passed over for the day. 

When it next came up for consideration on Monday the 
]8th, Mr. Benton took the floor and made a speech bearing 
evident indications o<f study and preparation. In the course 
of his remarks, he made a violent attack upon New England, 
its men and institutions. He denounced the policy of New 
Eno-land towards the West as illiberal and unjust — but ex- 
tolled the generosity of the South. " The West must still 
look," he said, " to the solid phalanx of the South for 

succor." 

The whole character of the speech revealed a previous in- 
tention to attack New England ; and, in one he made subse- 
quent to this, he assorted that he had been informed, during 
the vacation, of a design to introduce such a resolution, and 
declared his determination to meet it. It was brought in, 
he said, to forestall his own purpose. " It was introduced to 
check-mate my graduation bill ! It was an offer of battle to 
the West ! I accepted the offer ; I am fighting the battle ; 
some are crying out and hauling off ; but / am standing to it, 
and mean to stand to it. I call upon the adversary to come 
on and lay on, and I tell him — 

" Damned be he, that first cries hold, enough !" 

This sentiment and the style of its utterance, arc severely 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 109 

Bentonlan. A harmless resolution of inquiry respecting a 
measure of public policy was converted, in the alembic of his 
egotism, into a studied attack upon himself, or, it may be, he 
sought to make another seem the aggressor, in order to cover 
his own hostile intent. 

He was followed by Col. Hayne, who, after returning his 
complimentary salute, " The South would always sympathize 
with the West," poured also a broadside into New England. 

He placed in unpleasant contrast to the conduct of the 
South, the action of the Eastern States upon the question of 
the public lands, which he characterized as selfish and unprin- 
cipled. The East was unwilling — he said — that the public 
lands should be thrown open on easy terms to settlers, for fear 
of its being drained of population. It sought to retain its 
population at home for manufacturing purposes " To create 
a manufactory of paupers, who should supply the manufacto- 
ries of rich proprietors, and enable them to amass great 
wealth." 

The suddenness of this attack upon New England, its 
warmth, and evident malice, took Mr. Webster by surprise. 
He could not but feel that the onslaught upon the East was 
intended as a personal attack. Yet he was conscious of hav- 
ing given no provocation to either of the aggressors. He had 
neither sought nor accepted an opportunity to annoy them. 

He was not even aware of Mr. Foote's intention to introduce 
any such resolution ; but yet he could see no harm in its 
terms or purpose, nor impropriety in its introduction. His 



110 CHAPTER V. 

relations with tlie two Senators, fhough not intimate, were not 
hostile. He had neither given nor taken offence. It has in- 
deed been said, that at the close of the preceding session, 
Colonel Hayne had made a wanton and somewhat intemperate 
attack upon his opinions and conduct, which would have 
elicited a suitable reply, but for the interposition and entrea- 
ties of the Hon. John Reed and other members from Massa- 
chusetts, who feared a controversy between them at that time 
would endanger the satisfactory adjustment of some Massa- 
chusetts claim then on its passage though the Senate. Yield- 
ino- to their solicitations, Mr. Webster discarded all resentful 
feeling and withheld a reply. To this, or some similar circum- 
stance, he may be supposed to allude in the earlier part of his 
great speech, when speaking of Colonel Hayne's assault upon 
him. " Some passages, it is true, had occurred since our ac- 
quaintance in this body, which I could have wished might 
have been otherwise ; but I had used philosophy and forgotten 
them." With Mr. Benton he had never been on terms of 
social or personal intimacy, yet bore towards him a relation of 
senatorial courtesy. 

As soon as Colonel Hayne concluded his speech, Mr. 
Webster took the floor in reply. It was late, however, in the 
day, and he gave way on a motion from Mr. Benton to adjourn. 
In making the motion, Mr. Benton said he was unwilling that 
the harmony of the sounds which had just pervaded the 
Senate-chamber, and which still lingered upon the delighted 



DANIEL WEBSTER. Ill 

tympanum of Senators, should be broken in upon by augbt 
discordant . 

The next day Mr. Webster replied to the speech of Colonel 
Hayne. The growing interest of the controversy attracted a 
more than usual crowd to the Senate. It appeared evident 
to every one, a drama of some importance was going on. 

Mr. "Webster defended the conduct of the Eastern States 
towards the West as regarded the question of the public 
lands, and disproved, by historical analysis, the accusation of 
neglect or hostility on their part. All that he said in this 
speech on the public lands, forms an admirable state paper. 
He had evidently carried the subject before in his mind. Al- 
luding to the beneficial influence of the action of the general 
government upon the settlement of Ohio, and in the develop- 
ment of its vast natural resources, an action which he showed had 
been stimulated and directed by New England votes — he said, 
comparing the Ohio of 1794 with the Ohio of 1830: "And 
here, sir, at the epoch of 1794, let us pause and survey the 
scene. It is now thirty-five years since that scene actually ex- 
isted. Let us, sir, look back and behold it. Over all that is 
now Ohio, there then stretched one vast wilderness, unbroken, 
except by two small spots of civilized culture, the one at Ma- 
rietta, the other at Cincinnati. At these little openings, 
hardly a pin's point upon the map, the arm of the frontiers- 
man had levelled the forest and let in the sun. These little 
patches of earth, themselves almost shadowed by the over- 
hanging boughs of that wilderness, which had stood and per- 



112 CHAPTER V. 

petuated itself, from century to century, ever since the Crea- 
tion, were all that had been rendered verdant by the hand of 
man. In an extent of hundreds and thousands of square miles, 
no other surface of smiling green attested the presence of 
civilization. The hunter's path crossed mighty rivers, flowing 
in solitary grandeur, whose sources lay in remote and.unknown 
ret^ions of the wilderness. It struck upon the North, on a 
vast inland sea, over which the wintry tempests raged as on 
the ocean ; all around was bare creation. It was a fresh, un- 
touched, unbounded, magnificent wilderness ! And, sir, what 
is it now ? Is it imagination only, or can it possibly be fact, 
that presents such a change as surprises and astonishes us, 
when we turn our eyes to what Ohio now is ? Is it reality or 
a dream, that in so short a period as even thirty-five years, 
there has sprung up on the same surface an independent 
State, with a million of people ? A million of inhabitants ! 
An amount of population greater than all the Cantons of 
Switzerland ; equal to one-third of all the people of the United 
States when they undertook to accomplish their independence. 
If, sir, we may judge of measures by their results, what 
lessons do these facts read us upon the policy of the govern- 
ment } what inferences do they not authorise upon the general 
question of kindness or unkindness.? what convictions do 
they enforce, as to the wisdom and ability, on the one hand, 
or the folly and incapacity on the other, - of our general 
management of Western afiairs } For my own part, while I 
am struck with wonder at the success, I also look with admi- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 113 

ration at the wisdom and foresight which originally arranged 
and prescribed the system for the settlement of the public 
domain." 

In relation to the comparative aid afforded by the East and 
South to the settlement of the "West, Mr. Webster said : " I 
undertake to say, sir, that if you look to the votes on any one 
of these measures, and strike out from the list of ayes the 
names of New England members, it will be found that in every 
case the South would then have voted down the West, and the 
measure would have failed." 

In conclusion Mr. Webster said : " The Senate will bear 
me witness that I am not accustomed to allude to local opin- 
ions, nor to compare nor contrast different portions of the coun- 
try. I have often suffered things to pass which I might pro- 
perly enough have considered as deserving a remark, without 
any observation. But I have felt it my duty on this occasion, 
to vindicate the State which I represent from charges and im- 
putations on her public character and conduct, which I know 
to be undeserved and unfounded. If advanced elsewhere, they 
might be passed, perhaps, without notice. But whatever is 
said here is supposed to be entitled to public regard, and to 
deserve public attention ; it derives importance and dignity 
from the place where it is uttered. As a true representative 
of the State which has sent me here, it is my duty, and a duty 
which I shall fulfil, to place her history and her conduct, her 
honor and her character, in their just and proper light. 

" While I stand here as representative of Massachusetts, I 



114 CHAPTER V. 

will be her true representative, and by the blessing of Grod, I 
will vindicate her character, motives, and history, from every 
imputation, coming from a respectable source.'' 

If Mr. Webster betrayed in this speech an unusual warmth 
of manner and language, his sufficient apology is the provoca- 
tion he had received. New England, — and more particularly 
Massachusetts, his foster-mother, — had been gratuitously as- 
sailed, and, as he could not but believe, with direct reference 
to himself. He had been struck at where his sensibilities were 
deepest and keenest — in his love of home ; — and had he re- 
mained silent or even contented himself with simply repelling 
the attack, his constituency and the world would have pro- 
nounced him craven. This was not besides the sole provoca- 
tion he had received ; this was not the solitary occasion on 
which his temper had been sorely tried. The dominant party 
in the Senate, mad with its excessive victory, had previously 
teazed and goaded him. He had borne much, — some thought 
too much, — with "a patient shrug." The time had come 
when, in more than his own opinion, he should take the field in 
earnest. 

On Tuesday, January 21st, — the day after Mr. Webster's 
speech, — the Senate resumed again the consideration of Mr. 
Foote's resolution. 

Before the debate recommenced, Mr. Chambers, of Md., 
rose and expressed a hope that the Senate would consent to 
postpone further consideration of the resolution till the Mon- 
day following, as Mr. Webster who had taken part in it and 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 115 

wished to be present at its continued discussion had unavoida- 
ble eno;ao:ements elsewhere. 

There was a case of some importance on argument before 
the Supreme Court in which Mr. Webster was retained as 
counsel. Compelled to watch its progress, for he knew not at 
what moment he might be called upon to address the Bench, 
he had not been able to command more than an occasional 
presence in the Senate. He was not present when the resolu- 
tion was introduced, nor more than a fractional portion of the 
time while Mr. Benton spoke. 

The request was denied him. Col. Hayne rose in evident 
agitation, and insisted that the debate should go on without 
postponement. He said with some superciliousness of man- 
ner and with an angry intonation of voice, that he saw the 
gentleman from Massachusetts in his seat ; and presumed, if 
he really desired it, he could make an arrangement which 
would enable him to be present at the discussion that day. 
He would not consent that the subject should be postponed, 
until he had had an opportunity of replying to some of the ob- 
servations which had fallen from the gentleman the day before. 
Putting his hand to his heart, he said, " he had something 
there, which he wished to get rid of. The gentleman had dis- 
charged his fire in the face of the Senate ; and he demanded an 
opportunity of returning the shot." 

" Then it was" — to use the words of a distinguished mem- 
ber of Congress from a Southern State who was present on 
the occasion — " that Mr. Webster's person seemed to become 



116 CHAPTER V. 

taller and larger. His chest expanded, and his eyeballs dilate 
ed. Folding his arms in a composed, firm, and most expres- 
sive manner, he exclaimed : ' Let the discussion proceed. I 
am ready. I am ready now to receive the gentleman's fire.' 
Oh, my dear sir, I wish I could convey to you even some faint 
idea of the true grandeur that then marked his manner and 
countenance." 

Mr. Benton, who had gained the floor the day previous on 
the conclusion of Mr. Webster's remarks, then rose and ad- 
dressed the Senate for an hour. In the earlier part of the 
speech, he undertook to remove all pretension of Nathan Dane 
to the authorship of the Ordinance of '87, which he claimed 
for Thomas Jefferson. Speaking as if he had accomplished 
the undertaking, beyond the possibility of denial, he said: 
" But yesterday the name of Nathan Dane, of Beverly, Massa- 
chusetts, hung in equipoise against half the names of the sages 
of Greece and Rome. Poetry and eloquence were at work to 
blazon his fame ; marble and brass, and history and song, were 
waiting to perform their ofl&ce. The celestial honors of the 
apotheosis seemed to be only deferred for the melancholy 
event of the sepulchre. To-day, all this superstructure of 
honors, human and divine, disappears from the earth. The 
foundation of the edifice is sapped ; and the superhuman 
glories of him, who, twenty-four hours ago, was taking his sta- 
tion among the demi-gods of antiquity, have dispersed and 
dissipated into thin air — vanishing like the baseless fabric of a 
vision, which leaves not a wreck behind." 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 117 

Apart from the egotism, somewhat atrocious of the speech, 
there was a good deal of merit in it. It displayed no little in- 
genuity of argument, and much power of invective, with some 
considerable amount of political and miscellaneous learning ; 
the latter all poured out, however, in one turbid gush. 

The debate had by this time assumed a character that left 
no doubt of the intention of its promoters. To disinterested 
persons who had been thus far present in the discussion, no- 
thing seemed now more evident than a determined purpose on 
the part of the majority to crush Mr. Webster. Out of the 
Senate, his approaching and inevitable discomfiture was among 
the friends of the Administration the prominent and most 
agreeable topic of conversation ; in their opinion his doom was 
certain ; for he was not only to be assailed by the ordinary 
force of the party, but was fated to encounter the irresistible 
attack of the great statesman and orator. Gen. Hayne, of 
South Carolina — the very Achilles of the South ; unlike Ho- 
mer's hero, however, vulnerable nowhtrt ! Benton complain- 
ed in the open Senate that there would be nothing left for him 
to do ; while Rowan and those near him congratulated them- 
selves that they too at least would be " in at the death." 

The warm blood of Col. Hayne could not brook the post- 
ponement of vengeance. He besought his friend from Mis- 
souri to yield the floor, while he replied to the Senator from 
Massachusetts. Mr. Benton gave a cheerful assent ; but be- 
fore Col. Hayne commenced, Mr. Bell, of New Hampshire, 



lis CHAPTER V. 

made another motion to adjourn till the Monday following. 
This motion was lost by a strict party vote. 

Col. Hayne then rose and entered upon his speech. His 
exordium was respectable in point of ability, and gave assu- 
rance of a well -prepared speech. Every one must judge of it for 
himself. The high estimate that had previously been formed 
of his talents and character disposed the Senate and audience 
to listen attentively ; and there was much in the earlier part 
of the speech particularly to confirm the common opinion 
of his abilities and to command attention. 

As he proceeded, his tone and language became more ve- 
hement : his allusions more personal. There was an angry 
inflection in his voice, indicative of loss of temper. His bear- 
ing betrayed a good deal of self-confidence, at times almost 
arrogance. He seemed certain of victory, and only doubtful 
how much of his strength he should put forth. Violent as were 
his personalities, and bitter his invective, they were less in- 
tolerable yet than the insolence of his charity ; for he seemed 
to arrest ever and anon " the thunder in mid volley," not to 
annihilate all at once his inevitable victim. 

Sympathizing and exulting friends surrounded him, from 
whose countenances he read the apparent success of his 
philippic. They urged him on with looks and encouraging 
words. The eye of the Vice-President, which, alone of his 
features, ever indicated an emotion, shone approvingly. Nor 
did he confine his assistance to a glance of approbation. Con- 
stantly during the progress of the discussion, he sent notes, 



DAMEL WEIiSTER. 119 

suggestive, illustrative and advisatory to the orator, by one of 
the pages of the Senate. 

Col. Hayne had other advisers and other contributors in and 
out of the Senate, who supplied him with all the damnatory 
paragraphs the press had ever thrown out, in its moments of 
greatest excitement against New England, Mr. Webster, or 
his friends. They lie piled upon the orator's desk — Pelion 
upon Ossa — ^'an ass's load." 

In speaking afterwards of such attempts to injure him, Mr. 
Webster said : " The journals were all pored over, and the 
reports ransacked, and scraps of paragraphs and half sentences 
were collected, put together in the falsest manner, and then 
made to flare out as if there had been some discovery. But 
all this failed. The next resort was to supposed correspond- 
ence. My letters were sought for, to learn, if, in the confidence 
of private friendship, I had never said anything which an 
enemy could make use of. With this view, the vicinity of my 
former residence was searched, as with a lighted candle. New 
Hampshire was explored from the mouth of the Merrimack 
to the White Hills." 

Who of Mr. Webster's political opponents in or out of the 
Senate acted as " scavengers" on this occasion, it were un- 
necessary, if it were possible, to mention. They were fully 
punished in the failure of their unmanly efforts. The greatest, 
perhaps the only punishment, the unprincipled machinator 
feels, is a sense of useless rascality. 

Col. Hayne spoke this day, Thursday, January 21st, a little 



120 CHAPTER V. 

more thaq an hour. The Senate then adjourned over till 
Monday following. To give the Senator from Massachusetts 
fair warning of the fate that awaited him, Col. Hayne, on the 
conclusion of this day's remarks, spoke as follows : " Sir, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts has thought proper for pur- 
poses best known to himself, to strike the South through me ; 
the most unworthy of her servants. He has crossed the bor- 
der, he has invaded the State of South Carolina, is making 
war upon her citizens, and endeavoring to overthrow her prin- 
ciples and her institutions. Sir, when the gentleman provokes 
me to such a conflict, I meet him at the threshold — I will 
struggle, while I have life, for our altars and our firesides, and 
if God gives me strength, I will drive back the invader dis- 
comfited. Nor fe'hall I stop there. If the gentleman provokes 
war, he shall have war. Sir, I will not stop at the border ; I 
will carry the war into the enemy's territory, and not consent 
to lay down my arms, until I shall have obtained ' indemnity 
for the past, and security for the future.' It is with unfeigned 
reluctance that I enter upon the performance of this part of 
my duty : I shrink, almost instinctively, from a course, how- 
ever necessary, which may have a tendency to excite sectional 
feelings, and sectional jealousies. But, sir, the task has been 
forced upon me, and I proceed right onward to the perform- 
ance of my duty ; be the consequences what they may, the 
responsibility is with those who have imposed upon me the 
necessity. The Senator from Massachusetts has thought 
proper to cast the first stone, and if he shall find, according to 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 121 

a homely adage, that ' he lives in a glass-liouse,' on his head 
be the consequences." 

This lan^uao-e is minatory : it is also somewhat arrogant. 
As if the consummation necessarily followed the menace. The 
Senator from South Carolina spoke ex cathedrd. He was 
buoyed up by the applause of friends and his own sanguine 
temperament. 

The Senate adjourned over to the following Monday. The 
town was full of excitement. The severe nature of Col. 
Hayne's attack, the ability with which it was conducted, his 
great reputation, the eminence of the combatants, and the 
doubtful issue of the contest afforded ample scope for various 
di.'^cussion. The friends of Col. Hayne were much elated at 
what they considered his brilliant dehU, and confidently pre- 
dicted his ultimate triumph. Mr. Webster's friends doubted, 
and hoped. 

A simultaneous and seemingly preconcerted attack upon 
New Eno-land from the leaders of Southern and Western 
Democracy raised among the Eastern men, of whatever politi- 
cal opinions, a common feeling. Party-spirit was wholly 
merged in wounded national (or local) pride. Sympathy for 
the cause, and for Mr. Webster in the isolated position he 
held a2;ainst such a powerful array, overrode for the time all 
prejudice against his person or political principles. The Yan- 
kee predominated over the Democrat. 

Yv^hen the Senate convened again on Monday, the agitation 

in men's minds, growing daily stronger from the previous 

6 



122 CHAPTER V. 

adjournment, had gained a feverish character. The long time 
afforded Col. Hayne for additional preparation, his rumored 
consultations with the Yice-President, and the confident man- 
ner both of himself and friends added new force to the excite- 
ment, and promised richer entertainment from the discussion : 
so the Senate-chamber was more filled and earlier than usual. 

Col. Hayne commenced this day with a history of the 
Hartford Convention, illustrated by the documentary evidence 
his " scavengers" had hunted up. The whole affair is a 
tedious farrago, which not even his name could elevate into 
importance. Four columns and a half of the Intelligencer 
were crowded with such matter — quotations from newspapers, 
pamphlets and sermons — read to the Senate " with good ac- 
cent and good discretion." His elocution was fluent and 
melodious ; this alone reconciled Senate and audience to what 
would in itself have been absurdly tedious. 

Passages will be found in the speech of real eloquence, 
sparsely scattered, however. There is no sustained power 
throughout, but acting only at fitful intervals. The best hit 
perhaps the speaker made was his charge against Mr. Webster 
of inconsistency upon the subject of the Tariff. It is conveyed, 
too, in language better selected and more expressive than his 
usual style. Speaking of Mr. Webster's anti-tariff speech in 
'24, Col. Hayne said : " On that occasion he, the gentlemen, 
assumed a position which commanded the respect and admi- 
ration of his country. He stood forth the powerful and fear- 
less champion of free-trade. He met in that^conflict the ad- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 123 

vocates of restriction and monopoly, and they ' fled from 
before his face.' With a profound sagacity, a fulness of 
knowledge, and a richness of illustration that has never been 
surpassed, he maintained and established the principles of 
commercial freedom on a foundation never to be shaken. 
Great indeed was the victory achieved by the gentleman on 
that occasion ; most striking the contrast between the clear, for- 
cible and convincing arguments by which he carried away the 
understanding of his hearers, and the narrow views and 
wretched sophistry of another distinguished orator, who may 
be truly said to have ' held up his farthing candle to the sun.' 
Sir, the Senator from Massachusetts on that (the proudest 
day of his life) like a mighty giant, bore away upon his shoul- 
ders the pillars of the temple of error and delusion, escaping 
himself unhurt, and leaving his adversaries overwhelmed in its 
ruins. Then it was that he erected to free-trade a beautiful 
and enduring monument, and ' inscribed the marble with his 
name.' " 

The vehemence of the orator's language and the x earnestness 
of his manner, produced no little effect upon his audience. 
They naturally begat sympathy. No one had time to deliber- 
ate upon his words, or canvass his statements. The dashino- 
nature of the attack ; the assurance, almost insolence, of its 
tone ; the severity and apparent truth of the accusations, con- 
founded almost every hearer. The immediate impression 
from the speech was most assuredly disheartening to the cause 
Mr. Webster upheld. The friends of the Administration 



124 CHAPTER V. 

qualified by no regard for person or place the extent of their 
exultation. Congratulations from almost every quarter were 
showered upon the speaker. Mr. Benton said, in the full 
Senate, that much as Col. Hayne had done before to establish 
his reputation as an orator, a statesman, a patriot, and a gal- 
lant son of the South, the efibrts of that day would eclipse and 
surpass the whole. It would be an era in his senatorial career 
which his friends and his country would mark and remember, 
and look back upon with pride and exultation. 

Nor was lavish praise of the speech confined to Mr. Benton 
or the Senate. Abroad, it gained equal commendation. The 
press of the Administration extolled it as the greatest effort of 
the time, or of other times. Chatham, nor Burke, nor Fox, 
had surpassed it, in their palmiest days. Immense exer- 
tions were made to throw it into general circulation, that 
public opinion might be forestalled in regard to the great 
question of the constitutional power of the General Grovernment. 

Satisfaction, however, with the speech even among the 
friends of the orator was not unanimous. Among others, Mr. 
Calhoun, and Mr. Iredell, a Senator from North Carolina, 
doubted. These gentlemen knew, for they had felt Mr. Web- 
ster's power. They knew the great resources of his mind ; 
the immense range of his intellect; the fertility of his imagi- 
nation ; his copious and fatal logic ; the scathing severity of 
his sarcasm, and his full and electrifying eloquence. To a 
friend of Hayne's, who was praising the speech, Mr. Iredell 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 125 

said : " He has started the lion — but wait till we hear his 
roar, or feel his claws." 

Gloomy fears, in the meantime, for the most part, oppressed 
Mr. Webster's friends. The savagcness of the attack, its 
seeming premeditation and powerful support gave them no en- 
couragement of a successful resistance. They felt for Mr. 
Webster ; they also felt for themselves. Their local pride, their 
love of fame, the first to spring up in the heart of man, the last 
to leave it, was deeply mortified. 

Everywhere during the evening and night following, the 
merits of the speech were canvassed. The town was divided 
into geographical opinions. One's home could be distinguish- 
ed from his countenance, or manner ; a Southerner's by his 
buoyant, joyous expression, and confident air ; a Yankee's, by 
his timid, anxious eye, and depressed bearing. One walked 
with a bold, determined step, that courted observation ; the 
other, with a hesitating, shuffling gait, that seemed to long for 
some dark corner, some place to hear and see, and be unseen. 

Immediately upon the conclusion of Colonel Hayne's 
speech, Mr. Webster took the floor in reply ; but, it being 
near four o'clock in the afternoon, gave way to a motion for 
adjournment. Mr. Everett has kindly furnished the writer 
with some notes of a conversation he had with Mr, Webster 
the evening before his speech. 

*' Mr. Webster conversed with me freely and at length upon 
the subject of the reply, which he felt it necessary to make to 
Colonel Hayne's speech. He regarded that speech as an en- 



126 CHAPTER V. 

tirelj unprovoked attack upon the Eastern States, which it 
was scarcely possible for him, as a New England Senator, to 
leave unnoticed. He thought Colonel Hayne's speech, how- 
ever, much more important in another point of view, that is 
as an exposition of a system of politics, which, in Mr. W.'s 
opinion, went far to change the form of government from that 
which was established by the Constitution, into that (if it could 
be called a government) which existed under the confedera- 
tion. He expressed his intention of putting that theory to 
rest for ever, as far as it could be done by an argument in the 
Senate Chamber. 

*' I never saw him more calm and self-possessed, nor in 
better spirits ; and in fact the dry business tone in which he 
partly talked and partly read over his points to me, gave me 
some uneasiness, for fear he was not sufficiently aware how 
much was expected of him the next day." 

An anecdote of Mr. Webster's equanimity under the inflic- 
tion of Hayne is told by another friend, who called on Mr. 
Webster the same evening. While he was present, Mr. Web- 
ster laid down on the sofa for a nap — " his custom sometimes of 
an afternoon" — and after a while was overheard laughing to 
himself. On being questioned as to what amused him so, he 
replied : " I have been thinking of what Col. Hayne said to- 
day about Banquo's ghost ; and I am going to get up and 
make a note of it." 

Col. Hayne, it will be remembered, had in his second 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 127 

speech accused Mr. Webster of sleeping upon his first. ' The 
mere matter of fact," said Mr. W. in his reply, ' is undoubt- 
edly true. I did sleep on the gentleman's speech and slept 
soundly ; and I slept equally well on his speech of yesterday 
to which I am now replying." In truth. Col. Hayne's attack, 
furious as it was, had cost him neither loss of appetite, temper 
or sleep." 

It is not to be disguised, however, that his friends, — even 
his most intimate, — entertained fearful apprehensions. Mr. 
Webster's adversaries had selected their own time for attack, 
and made every preparation they thought necessary to ensure 
success. They were confident in their numbers, confident 
from their position and individual importance, and confident 
in the strength of their cause. There is always something, too, 
of advantage in assuming the aggressive ; courage suggests, 
and virtuous anticipations await an attack : while a defensive 
position is seemingly an acknowledgment of weakness. 

The momentous interests involved in the discussion stag- 
gered the minds of many. The pernicious heresy of nullifica- 
tion, tolerated if not encouraged in the high places of the Ad- 
ministration, threatened the constitution and the union of the 
States. It had already gained in diff'erent sections of the coun- 
try too great a prevalence ; and if now successfully advocated 
in the Senate of the United States, little hope could be enter- 
tained of safety or of more than brief duration for our national 
institutions. 

The friends, therefore, of the Union, no less than Mr. Web- 



128 CHAPTER V. 

ster's personal friends, could not but feel the deepest solicitude 
in the result of the controversy; a solicitude amounting at 
times almost to despondency. They could hardly bulieve that 
it was in the power of one man, no matter how great his en- 
dowments, to roll back the strong current that seemed likely 
to overwhelm the ancient landmarks. All portents looked 
gloomy, they thought ; darkness and danger were everywhere 
around them, and they saw no means of emerging from their 
great peril but with great loss and discomfiture. 

The night, therefore, came down gloomily and heavily upon 
them. They had no pastimes and little sleep that night, and 
rose in the early morning, unrefreshed and anxious ; deter- 
mined, however, with one mind, to resort in good s3ason to 
the Capitol. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

When Cineas returned from his mission to Rome, he was 
asked by his master Pyrrhus, how the Roman Senate ap- 
peared. " Like an assembly of kings," he replied. 

The Senate of the United States twenty years ago may not 
have presented the grave and majestic character of the Ro- 
man Senate. Our Senators wore not the flowing robes, nor 
still more flowing beards of the Conscript Fathers. But it 
was composed of men who could have understood Cicero as 
well as the audience he addressed, and replied to him better ; 
of men, too, not inferior, in physical organization, or intel- 
lectual expression, to any Senate Rome ever boasted. 

Where, among the most Patrician blood of Rome, could 
have been found more intellectual majesty than in the counte- 
nances of Webster and Calhoun, more dignity than in their 
bearing, more honor than in their character, or more grandeur 
than in their eloquence ? In whatever assembly placed, they 
would have given to it unrivalled distinction. 

Nor were they the sole persons of eminent ability, or dis- 
tinguished mien, in the Senate. There were others only less 

remarkable for both. The thoughtful eye and expansive 
6* 



130 CHAPTER VI, 

brow of Woodbury, the refined, gentlemanly, and expressive 
countenance of Forsyth, the gallant air and intellectual fea- 
tures of Hayne, the somewhat supercilious but determined 
bearing of Benton, the tall form and marked expression of 
Bell, the well-defined and rather majestic lineaments of Clay- 
ton — these characteristics, with those of other Senators no less 
distinguished, could not fail to convey to the spectator the im- 
pression of great intellectual and moral superiority. It was an 
assembly to be a member of which might have satisfied the 
most high-reaching ambition. It was an assembly the aggre-' 
gate ability of which, for the number of its members, has pro- 
bably never been surpassed, if equalled, in any representative 
body of the world. 

The very character of the Senate made its members more 
eager to distinguish themselves in it. "Alexander fights 
when he has kings for his competitors." Rivalry, always 
natural to the heart, became more emulous, more earnest, 
more intense, with such a field for its encouragement and ex- 
hibition ; when men were judges of the intellectual strife, who 
could themselves have taken an equal part in it, had occasion 
demanded. 



It was not alone the combined strength of the administra- 
tion party in the Senate Mr. Webster had to fear. He could 
not but be in doubt respecting his political allies. The char- 
acter of the minority at this time was somewhat anomalous. 
It was composed of Federalists of the old school, who had ad- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 131 

hered to the younger Adams, notwithstanding his gross ter- 
giversations ; of those Republicans, who, in the preceding 
canvass, from personal or local rather than from political con- 
siderations, had preferred Mr. Adams to his competitor ; and 
of " National Republicans" so called — a party formed indiffer- 
ently of the two others. To make an argument which should 
satisfy all without offending either of these classes seemed a 
task difficult to be accomplished. 

Fortunately for the country and his own fame, his doubts, 
on the subject, were removed. His warmest friends urged 
with great eagerness upon him an unequivocal, unreserved 
declaration of his views. None were more trusted, nor es- 
teemed by him, than Samuel Bell, then a Senator from 
New Hampshire. Originally a Federalist, he had gone over 
to the Republican party, early on the accession of Jefferson, 
and had supported his administration zealously and efficiently. 
He had advocated and defended the war with Great Britain, 
and all other measures of the Republican party up to the 
Presidential canvass of 1824. On that occasion, as well as 
four years later, without any violence, as he supposed, to his 
political principles or antecedents, he had favored the preten- 
sions of Mr. Adams. From his history, character, and gen- 
eral knowledge of persons and measures, he was perhaps the 
best exponent of the intentions and sentiments of the some- 
what mottled party, opposed to the administration of General 
Jackson. 

So at least Mr. Webster thought ; and on the morning of 



132 CHAPTER VI. 

the speech, after he had gone to the Capitol, he called Mr. Bell 
into the robing-room of the Senate, and told him his difficulty. 
" You know, Mr. Bell," said he, " my constitutional opinions. 
There are, among my friends in the Senate, some who may 
not concur in them. What is expedient to be done .-" Mr. 
Bell, with great emphasis of manner, advised him to speak out, 
boldly and fully, his thoughts upon the subject. "It is a 
critical moment," said he, " and it is time, it is high time the 
people of this country should know what this Constitution is." 
*' Then," replied Mr. Webster, " by the blessing of heaven, 
they shall learn, this day, before the sun goes down, what I 
understand it to be." 

It was on Tuesday, January the 26th, 1830, — a day to be 
hereafter forever memorable in Senatorial annals, — that the 
Senate resumed the consideration of Foote's Resolution. 
There never was before, in the city, an occasion of so much 
excitement. To witness this great intellectual contest, multi- 
tudes of strangers had for two or three days previous been 
rushing into the city, and the hotels overflowed. As early as 
9 o'clock of this morning, crowds poured into the Capitol, in 
hot haste ; at 12 o'clock, the hour of meeting, the Senate- 
Chamber, — its galleries, floor and even lobbies, — was filled to 
its utmost capacity. The very stairways were dark with men, 
who hung on to one another, like bees in a swarm. 

The House of Representatives was early deserted. An 
adjournment would have hardly made it emptier. The 
Speaker, it is true, retained his chair, but no business of mo- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 133 

ment was, or could be, attended to. Members all rushed in 
to hear Mr. Webster, and no call of the House or other Par- 
liamentary proceedings could compel them back. The floor 
of the Senate was so densely crowded, that persons once in 
could not get out, nor change their position ; in the rear of 
the Yice-Presidential chair, the crowd was particularly in- 
tense. Dixon H. Lewis, then a Representative from Ala- 
bama, became wedged in here. From his enormous size, it 
was impossible for him to move without displacing a vast 
portion of the multitude. Unfortunately too, for him, he was 
jammed in directly behind the chair of the Vice-President, 
where he could not see, and hardly hear, the speaker. By 
slow and laborious effort — pausing occasionally to breathe — he 
gained one of the windows, which, constructed of painted glass, 
flank the chair of the A^ice-President on either s'.de. Here 
he paused, unable to make more headway. But determined 
to see Mr. Webster as he spoke, with his knife he made a 
large hole in one of the panes of the glass ; which is still 
visible as he made it. Many were so placed, as not to be 
able to see the speaker at all. 

The courtesy of Senators accorded to the fairer sex room 
on the floor — the most gallant of them, their own seats. The 
gay bonnets and brilliant dresses threw a varied and pictur- 
esque beauty over the scene, softening and embellishing it. 

Seldom, if ever, has speaker in this or any other country 
had more powerful incentives to exertion ; a subject, the de- 
termination of which involved the most important interests_, 



134 CHAPTER VI. 

and even duration, of the republic ; competitors, unequalled 
in reputation, ability, or position ; a name to make still more 
glorious, or lose forever ; and an audience, comprising not only 
persons of this country most eminent in intellectual greatness, 
but representatives of other nations, where the art of elo- 
quence had flourished for ages. All the soldier seeks in op- 
portunity was here. 

Mr. Webster perceived, and felt equal to, the destinies of 
the moment. The very greatness of the hazard exhilarated 
him. His spirits rose with the occasion. He awaited the 
time of onset with a stern and impatient joy. He felt, like the 
war-horse of the Scriptures, — who " paweth in the valley, and 
rejoiceth in his strength : who goeth on to meet the armed men, 
— who sayeth among the trumpets. Ha, ha ! and who smell- 
eth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the 
shouting." 

A confidence in his own resources, springing from no vain 
estimate of his power, but the legitimate offspring of previous 
severe mental discipline sustained and excited him. He had 
guaged his opponents, his subject and himself. 

He was too, at this period, in the very prime of manhood. 
He had reached middle age — an era in the life of man, when 
the faculties, physical or intellectual, may be supposed to 
attain their fullest organization, and most perfect develop- 
ment. Whatever there was in him of intellectual energy and 
vitality, the occasion, his full life and high ambition, might 
well bring forth. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 135 

He never rose on an ordinary occasion to address an ordi- 
nary audience more self-possessed. There was no tremulous- 
ness in his voice nor manner ; nothing hurried, nothing simu- 
lated. The calmness of superior strength was visible every- 
where ; in countenance, voice and bearing. A deep-seated 
conviction of the extraordinary character of the emergency, and 
of his ability to control it, seemed to possess him wholly. If 
an observer, more than ordinarily keen-sighted, detected at 
times something like exultation in his eye, he presumed it 
sprang from the excitement of the moment, and the anticipa- 
tion of victory. 

The anxiety to hear the speech was so intense, irrepressible, 
and universal, that no sooner had the Vice-President assumed 
the chair, than a motion was made and unanimously carried, 
to postpone the ordinary preliminaries of Senatorial action, 
and to take up immediately the consideration of the resolu- 
tion. 

Mr. Webster rose and addressed the Senate. His exordium 
is known by heart, everywhere : " Mr. President, when the 
mariner has been tossed, for many days, in thick weather, 
and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the 
first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to 
take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have 
diiven him from his true course. Let us imitate this pru- 
dence ; and before we float further, on the waves of this de- 
bate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may, 



136 CHAPTER VI. 

at least, be able to form some conjecture where we now are. 
I ask for the reading of the resolution." 

There wanted no more to enchain the attention. There 
was a spontaneous, though silent, expression of eager appro- 
bation, as the orator concluded these opening remarks. And 
while the clerk read the resolution, many attempted the im- 
possibility of getting nearer the speaker. Every head was 
inclined closer towards him, every ear turned in the direction 
of his voice — and that deep, sudden, mysterious silence fol- 
lowed, which always attends fulness of emotion. From the 
sea of upturned faces before him, the orator beheld his 
thoughts reflected as from a mirror. The varying counte- 
nance, the suffused eye, the earnest smile, and ever-attentive 
look assured him of his audience's entire sympathy. If among 
his hearers there were those who affected at first an indiffer- 
ence to his glowing thoughts and fervent periods, the difficult 
mask was soon laid aside, and profound, undisguised, devoted 
attention followed. In the earlier part of his speech, one of 
his principal opponents seemed deeply engrossed in the care- 
ful perusal of a newspaper he held before his face ; but this, 
on nearer approach, proved to be upside down. In truth, all, 
sooner or later, voluntarily, or in spite of themselves, were 
wholly carried away by the eloquence of the orator. 

One of the happiest retorts ever made in a forensic contro- 
versy was his application of Hayne's comparison of the ghost 
of the " murdered coalition" to the ghost of Banquo : 

^' Sir, the honorable member was not, for other reasons, en- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 137 

tircly happy in his allusions to the story of Banquo's murder, 
and Banquo's ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but 
the enemies of the murdered Banquo, at whose bidding his 
spirit Avould not down. The honorable gentleman is fresh in 
his reading of the English classics, and can put me right if I 
am wrong ; but, according to my poor recollection, it was at 
those who had begun with caresses, and ended with foul and 
treacherous murder, that the gory locks were shaken ! The 
ghost of Banquo, like that of Hamlet was, an honest ghost. It 
disturbed no innocent man. It knew where its appearance 
would strike terror, and who would cry out, a ghost ! It 
made itself visible in the right quarter, and compelled the 
guilty, and the conscience-smitten, and none others, to start, 
with, 

" ' Pr'ytkee, see there ! behold ! look ! lo, 
If I stand here, I saw him !' 

Their eyeballs were seared (was it not so, sir?) who had 
thought to shield themselves, by concealing their own hand, 
and laying the imputation of the crime on a low and hireling 
agency in wickedness ; who had vainly attempted to stifle the 
workings of their own coward consciences, by ejaculating, 
through white lips and chattering teeth, " Thou canst not say 
I did it !" I have misread the great poet if those who had no 
way partaken in the deed of death, either found that they were, 
OY feared that they should be, pushed from their stools by the 
ghost of the slain, or exclaimed, to a spectre created by their 



138 CHAPTER VI. 

own fears, and their own remorse, "Avaunt! and quit our 

sight!" 

There was a smile of appreciation upon the faces all around, 
at this most felicitous use of another's illustration — this turn- 
ing one's own witness against him — in which Col. Hayne good 
humoredly joined. 

As the orator carried out the moral of Macbeth, and proved 
by the example of that deep-thinking, intellectual, but insane- 
ly-ambitious character, how little of substantial good or perma- 
nent power was to be secured by a devious and unblessed 
policy, he turned his eye with a significance of expression, full 
of prophetic revelation upon the Vice-President, reminding 
him that those who had foully removed Banquo had placed 

" A barren sceptre in their gripe, 
Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand^ 
No son of theirs succeeding P 

Every eye of the whole audience followed the direction of his 
own — and witnessed the changing countenance and visible 
agitation of Mr. Calhoun. 

Surely, no prediction ever met a more rapid or fuller con- 
firmation, even to the very manner in which the disaster was 
accomplished. Within a few brief months, the political for- 
tunes of the Vice-President, at this moment seemingly on the 
very point of culmination, had sunk so low, there were none 
so poor to do him reverence. 

Whether for a moment a presentiment of the approaching 
crisis in his fate, forced upon his mind by the manner and 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 139 

language of the speaker, cast a gloom over his countenance, 
or some other cause, it is impossible to say ; but his brow grew 
dark, nor for some time did his features recover their usual 
impassibility. 

The allusion nettled him, — the more as he could not but 
witness the effect it produced upon others — and made him 
restless. He seemed to seek an opportunity to break in upon 
the speaker ; and later in the day, as Mr. "Webster was expos- 
ing the gross and ludicrous inconsistencies of South Carolina 
politicians, upon the subject of Internal Improvements, he 
interrupted him with some eagerness : " Does the chair under- 
stand the gentleman from Massachusetts to say that the per- 
son now occupying the chair of the Senate has changed his 
opinions on this subject .?" To this, Mr. Webster replied 
immediately, and good-naturedly : '' From nothing ever said 
to me, sir, have I had reason to know of any change in the 
opinions of the person filling the chair of the Senate. If such 
change has taken place, I regret it."* 

* My. Calhoun's interruption was un-Parliamentary, or rather, un- 
Senatorial. The Vice-President is not a member of the Senate, and has 
no voice in it save for the preservation of order and enforcement of the 
rules. He cannot participate otherwise either in the debates or proceed- 
ings. He is simply the presiding officer of the Senate-Shaving no vote 
in its affairs save on a tie. Had JMr. Webster made a direct, unmistake- 
able allusion to him, Mr. Calhoun still could have replied through a 
friendly Senator, or the press. On this occasion he was too much ex- 
cited to attend to the etiquette of his position. His feelings and his in- 
terest in the question made him forgetful of his duty. 



140 CHAPTER VI. 

Those who had doubted Mr. Webster's ability to cope with 
and overcome his opponents were fully satisfied of their error 
before he had proceeded far in his speech. Their fears soon 
took another direction. When they heard his sentences of 
powerful thought, towering in accumulative grandeur, one 
above the other, as if the orator strove, Titan-like, to reach 
the very heavens themselves, they were giddy with an appre- 
hension that he would break down in his flight. They dared 
not believe, that genius, learning, any intellectual endow- 
ment however uncommon, that was simply mortal, could sus- 
tain itself long in a career seemingly so perilous. They 
feared an Icarian fall. 

Ah ! who can ever forget, that was present to hear, the 
tremendous, the awful burst of eloquence with which the 
orator spoke of the Old Bay State ! or the tones of deep 
pathos in which the words were pronounced : 

" Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon 
Massachusetts. There she is — behold her, and judge for 
yourselves. There is her history : the world knows it by 
heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and 

Sometime later than this, after a rupture had taken place between 
Gen. Jackson and himself, Mr. Forsyth, of Georgia, on being interrupted 
by some (as he thought) uncalled for question or remark, rebuked him 
in an emphatic manner for violation of official etiquette. Mr. Van Buren, 
who ousted and succeeded him, always remained silent, placid, imper- 
turbable in his seat, however personal or severe the attack upon him ; — 
and no Vice-President since his day has ever attempted to interfere with 
the discussions of the Senate. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 141 

Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill — and there they 
will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallins: in the 
great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the 
soil of every State, from New England to Georgia ; and there 
they will lie forever. And, sir, where American Liberty 
raised its first voice ; and where its youth was nurtured and 
sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood 
and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall 
wound it — if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and 
tear it — if folly and madness — if uneasiness, under salutary 
and necessary restraint — shall succeed to separate it from 
that Union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will 
stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its 
infancy was rocked : it will stretch forth its arm with what- 
ever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather 
round it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the 
proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of 
its origin." 

What New England heart was there but throbbed with 
vehement, tumultuous, irrepressible emotion, as he dwelt 
upon New England sufferings. New England struggles, and 
New England triumphs during the war of the Revolution ? 
There was scarcely a dry eye in the Senate ; all hearts were 
overcome ; grave judges and men grown old in dignified life 
turned aside their heads, to conceal the evidences of their 
emotion.* 
* Gen. Washington said that the New England troops came better 



142 CHAPTER VI. 

In one corner of the gallery was clustered a group of 
Massachusetts men. They had hung from the first moment 
upon the words of the speaker, with feelings variously but 
always warmly excited, deepening in intensity as he proceeded. 
At first, while the orator was going through his exordium, 
they held their breath and hid their faces, mindful of the 
savage attack upon him and New England, and the fearful 
odds against him, her champion ; — as he went deeper into his 
speech, they felt easier ; when he turned Hayne's flank on 
Banquo's ghost, they breathed freer and deeper. But now, 
as he alluded to Massachusetts, their feelings were strained to 
the highest tension ; and when the orator, concluding his 
encomium upon the land of their birth, turned, intentionally, 
or otherwise, his burning eye full upon them — they shed tears 
like girls ! 

No one who was not present can understand the excitement 
of the scene. No one, who was, can give an adequate de- 
scription of it. No word-painting can convey the deep, 
intense enthusiasm, — the reverential attention, of that vast 
assembly — nor limner transfer to canvass their earnest, eager, 
awe-struck countenances. Though language were as subtile 
ai^d flexible as thought, it still would be impossible to repre- 
sent the full idea of the scene. There is something intangible 
in an emotion, which cannot be transferred. The nicer 
shades of feeling elude pursuit. Every description, therefore, 

clothed into the field, were as orderly there, and fought as well, if not 
better, than any troops on the continent 



DAMEL WEBSTER. 143 

of the occasion, seems to the narrator himself most tame, 
spiritless, unjust. 

Much of the instantaneous effect of the speech arose, of 
course, from the orator's delivery— the tones of his voice, his 
countenance, and manner.* These die mostly with the 
occasion that calls them forth — the impression is lost in the 
attempt at transmission from one mind to another. They can 
only be described in general terms. ^' Of the effectiveness of 
Mr. Webster's manner, in many parts," says Mr. Everett, 
" it would be in vain to attempt to give any onp ^ .esent 
the faintest idea; It has been myxortune to hear some of the 
ablest speeches <?/the greatest living orators, on both sides of 

" water, but 1 must confess, I never heard anything which 






^ The personal appearance of Mr. Webster has been a theme of 
frequent discussion. He was at the time this speech was delivered 
twenty years younger than now. Time had not thinned nor bleached 
his hair : it was as dark as the raven's plumage, surmounting his mas- 
sive brow in ample folds. His eye, always dark and deep-set, enkindled 
by some glowing thought, shone from beneath his sombre, overhanging 
brow like lights, in the blackness of night, from a sepulchre. It was 
such a countenance as Salvator Rosa delighted to paint. 

No one understood, or understands, better than Mr. Webster the 
philosophy of dress : what a powerful auxiliary it is to speech and 
manner, when harmonizing with them. On this occasion he appeared 
in a blue coat and buff vest,— the Revolutionary colors of buff and 
blue ;— with a white cravat ;— a costume, than which none is more 
becoming to his face and expression. This courtly particularity of 
dress adds no little to the influence of his manner and appearance. 



144 ' CHAPTER VI. 

SO completely realized my conception of what Demosthenes 
was when he delivered the Oration for the Crown." 

Assuredly, Plean nor Kemble, nor any other masterly 
delineator of the human passions ever produced a more 
powerful impression upon an audience, or swayed so completely 
their hearts. This was actingj—^not to the life, — but life 
itself. 

No one ever looked the orator, as he did — " os humerosqiie 
deu si7nilis,^'' in form and feature how like a god. His 
• 'ojit'^pitir'e spake no less audibly than his words. His 
manner gave new force to 'las ik\r"52re As he stood swaying 
his right arm, lik(5 a huge tilt-hammer, up "iP^ down, his 
swarthy countenance lighted up with excitement, he appeared 
amid the smoke, the fire, the thunder of his eloquence, like 
Vulcan in his armory forging thoughts for the Gods ! 

The human face never wore an expression of more wither- 
ing, relentless scorn, than when the orator replied to Hayne's 
allusion to the '^ murdered coalition." " It is," said Mr. 
W., "the very cast-off slough of a polluted and shameless 
press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies in the sewer, 
lifeless and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the 
honorable member to give it dignity or decency, by attempt- 
ing to elevate it, and introduce it into the Senate. He cannot 
change it from what it is — an object of general disgust and 
scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch 
it, is more likely to drag him down, down to the place where 
it lies itself" He looked, as he spoke these words, as if the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 145 

thins: he alluded to was too mean for scorn itself — and tlie 
sharp, stinging enunciation made the words still more wither- 
ing. The audience seemed relieved, — so crushing was the 
expression of his face which they held on to, as 'twere, spell- 
bound, — when he turned to other topics. 

The good-natured yet provoking irony with which he 
described the imaginary though life-like scene of direct 
collision between the marshalled array of South Carolina 
under Gen. Hayne on the one side, and the officers of the 
United States on the other, nettled his opponent even more 
than his severer satire ; it seemed so ridiculously true. Col. 
Hayne enquired, with some degree of emotion, if the gentle- 
man from Massachusetts intended any personal imputation by 
such remarks } To which Mr. Webster replied, with perfect 
good humor : " Assuredly not — just the reverse." 

The variety of incident during the speech, and the rapid 
fluctuation of passions, kept the audience in continual expect- 
ation, and ceaseless agitation. There was no chord of the 
heart the orator did not strike, as with a master-hand. The 
speech was a complete drama of comic and pathetic scenes ; 
one varied excitement ; laughter and tears gaining alternate 
victory. 

A great portion of the speech is strictly argumentative ; an 

exposition of constitutional law. But grave as such portion 

necessarily is, severely logical, abounding in no fancy or 

episode, it engrossed throughout the undivided attention of 

every intelligent hearer. Abstractions, under the glowing 
7 



140 CHAPTER IV''. 

genius of the orator, acquired a beauty, a vitality, a power to 
thrill the blood and enkindle the affections, awakening into 
earnest activity many a dormant faculty. His ponderous 
syllables had an energy, a vehemence of meaning in them 
that fascinated, while they startled. His thoughts in their 
statuesque beauty merely would have gained all critical 
judgment ; but he realized the antique fable, and warmed the 
marble into life . There was a sense of power in his language , — 
of power withheld and suggestive of still greater power, — that 
subdued, as by a spell of mystery, the hearts of all. For 
power, whether intellectual or physical, produces in its earnest 
development a feeling closely allied to awe. It was never 
more felt than on this occasion. It had entire mastery. The 
sex, which is said to love it best and abuse it most, seemed as 
much or more carried away than the sterner one. Many who 
had entered the hall with light, gay thoughts, anticipating at 
most a pleasurable excitement, soon became deeply interested 
in the speaker and his subject — surrendered him their entire 
heart ; and, when the speech was over, and they left the hall, 
it was with sadder perhaps, but, surely, with far more elevated 
and ennobling emotions. 

The exulting rush of feeling with which he went through 
the peroration threw a glow over his countenance, like inspi- 
ration. Eye, brow, each feature, every line of the face 
seemed touched, as with a celestial fire. All gazed as at 
something more than human. So Moses might have appeared 
to the awe-struck Israelites as he emerged from the dark 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 147 

clouds and thick smoke of Sinai, his face all radiant with the 
breath of divinity ! 

The swell and roll of his voice struck upon the ears of the 
spell-bound audience, in deep and melodious cadence, as 
waves upon the shore of the "far-resounding" sea. The 
Miltonic grandeur of his words was the fit expression of his 
thought and raised his hearers up to his theme. His voice, 
exerted to its utmost power, penetrated every recess or corner 
of the Senate — penetrated even the ante-rooms and stairways, 
as he pronounced in deepest tones of pathos these words of 
solemn significance : " When my eyes shall be turned to 
behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see 
him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once 
glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ! 
on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in 
fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance 
rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known 
and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced,* 

* Mr. Webster may have had in his mind, when speaking of the 
gorgeous ensign of the Republic, Milton's description of the imperial 
banner in the lower regions, floating across the immensity of space : 

" Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl'd 
The imperial ensign ; which, full high advanced 
Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind, 
With gems and golden lustre rich, imblaz'd, 
Seraphic arms and trophies ; all the while 
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds :" 



148 CHAPTER VI. 

its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a 
stripe erased nor polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing 
for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, " What is all 
this worth ?" Nor those other words of delusion and folly, 
Liberty first and Union afterwards ; but everywhere, spread 
all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample 
folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in 
every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, 
dear to every American heart, Liberty and Union, now and 

FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE !'' 



The speech was over, but the tones of the orator still 
lingered upon the ear, and the audience, unconscious of the 
close, retained their positions. The agitated countenance, the 
heaving breast, the suffused eye attested the continued influ- 
ence of the spell upon them. Hands that in the excitement 
of the moment had sought each other, still remained closed 
in an unconscious grasp. Eye still turned to eye, to receive 
and repay mutual sympathy ; — and everywhere around seemed 
forgetfulness of all but the orator's presence and words. 

When the Vice-President, hastening to dissolve the spell, 
angrily called to order ! order ! There never was a deeper 
stillness — not a movement, not a gesture had been made, — 
not a whisper uttered — order ! Silence could almost have 

And this in its turn is borrowed from, or suggested by, Tasso's description 
of the banner of the Crusades, when first unfolded in Palestine — which 
the inquisitive reader may find, if he choose, in " Jerusalem Delivered*'' 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 149 

heard itself, it was so supernaturally still. The feeling was 
too overpowering, to allow expression, by voice or hand. It 
was as if one was in a trance, all motion paralyzed. 

But the descendino; hammer of the Chair awoke them, with 
a start — and with one universal, long-drawn, deep breath, 
with which the overcharged heart seeks relief, — the crowded 
assembly broke up and departed. 



The New-England men walked down Pennsylvania avenue 
that day, after the speech, with a firmer step and bolder air — 
" pride in their port, defiance in their eye." You would have 
sworn they had grown some inches taller in a few hours' 
time. They devoured the way, in their stride. They looked 
every one in the face they met, fearing no contradiction . 
They swarmed in the streets, having become miraculously 
multitudinous. They clustered in parties, and fought the 
scene over one hundred times that night. Their elation was 
the greater, by reaction. It knew no limits, or choice of 
expression. Not one of them but felt he had gained a 
personal victory. Not one, who was not ready to exclaim, 
with gushing eyes, in the fulness of gratitude, " Thank God, 
I too am a Yankee !" 

In the evening General Jackson held a levee at the White 
House. It was known, in advance, that Mr. Webster would 
attend it, and hardly had the hospitable doors of the house 
been thrown open, when the crowd that had filled the Senate- 
chamber in the morning rushed in and occupied the rooms. 



J50 CHAPTER VI. 

Persons a little more tardy in arriving found it almost impos- 
sible to get in, such a crowd oppressed the entrance. 

Before this evening, the General had been the observed of 
all observers. His military and personal reputation, official 
position, gallant bearing, and courteous manners, had secured 
him great and merited popularity. His receptions were 
always gladly attended by large numbers — to whom he was 
himself the object of attraction. 

But on this occasion, the room in which he received his 
company was deserted, as soon as courtesy to the President 
permitted. Mr. Webster, it was whispered, was in the East 
Room, and thither the whole mass hurried. 

He stood almost in the centre of the room, hemmed in by 
eager crowds, from whom there was no escape, all pressing to 
get nearer to him. He seemed but little exhausted by the 
intellectual exertion of the day, severe as it had been. The 
flush of excitement still lingered and played upon his counte- 
nance, gilding and beautifying it, like the setting sun its 
accompanying clouds. 

All were eager to get a sight at him. Some stood on tip- 
toe, and some even mounted the chairs of the room. Many 
were presented to him. The dense crowd, entering and 
retiring, moved round him, renewing the order of their 
ingression and egression, continually. One would ask his 
neighbor : '' Where, which is Webster .?" — " There, don't 
you see him — that dark, swarthy man, with a great deep eye 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 151 

and heavy brow — that's Webster." No one was obliged to 
make a second inquiry. 

In another part of the room was Col. Hayne. He, too, 
had had his day of triumph, and received congratulations. 
His friends even now contended that the contest was but a 
drawn-battle, no full victory having been achieved on either 
side. There was nothing in his own appearance this evening 
to indicate the mortification of defeat. With others, he went 
up and complimented Mr. Webster on his brilliant efibrt ;* and 
no one, ignorant of the past struggle, could have supposed 
that they had late been engaged in such fierce rivalry. 

* It was said at the time, that, as Col. Hayne approached Mr. 
Webster to tender his congratulations, the latter accosted him with the 
usual courtesy, "' How are you, this evening, Col. Hayne ?" and that 
Col. Hayne replied, good-humoredly, '" None the better for you, sirP^ 



CHAPTER VII. 

Colonel Hayne occupied himself diligently in taking 
notes while Mr. Webster spoke, and replied, in a speech of 
about half an hour, to Mr. Webster's constitutional opinions. 
The speech reported contained a great deal more than the one 
delivered ; the great importance of the question making it de- 
sirable, in Colonel Hayne's opinion, that arguments should 
be supplied, which he had been obliged, from want of time, to 

omit in the debate. 

Mr. Webster immediately replied in a summary re-state- 
ment of his argument ; " of which the parallel, says iMr. 
Everett, " as a compact piece of reasoning, will not readily be 
found." Mr. Adams pronounced it even supeiior to the one 
that preceded it. It fills less than three pages of the Con- 
gressional Debates, while Hayne's, to which it was a reply, 
occupies nineteen. 

The manner in which the Great Speech, as the second in 
point of time is called, to distinguish it from the ono tlnxt 
preceded and the one that followed it, came before the public, 
it may not be uninteresting to know. Mr. Clayton, of Dela- 
ware, and Judge Bui'nett. of Ohio, — then Senators, — called 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 153 

the morning of the speech upon Mr. Gales, the senior editor 
of the National Intelligencer^ and at that time Mayor of the 
city of Washington, and requested him to undertake the re- 
porting of the speech. Mr. Gales was known to be one of the 
best writers of the English language connected with our na- 
tional literature, and more capable than almost any one else, 
of understanding and recording the peculiar merits of Mr. 
Webster's style. Notwithstanding the engrossing nature of 
his avocations, he assented to the request. He made a steno- 
graphic report of the speech, which Mrs. Gales wrote out at 
large. Her copy was sent to Mr. Webster, and by him re- 
vised the same evening. 

The demand for the speech was immense. The National 
Intelligencer of May, 1830, said—" The demand for copies of 
Mr. Webster's speech in what has been called the Great De- 
bate in the Senate, has been unprecedented. We are just 
completing an edidon of 20,000 copies, which, added to 
former editions, will make an aggregate of nearly 40,000 copies 
that have been printed at this office alone." 

Pamphlet editions too were struck off in thousands ; not in 
Washington alone, but elsewhere. A very large edition was 
printed in Boston, containing Colonel Hayne's speech also. 
A proposal was made to the friends of Colonel Hayne to pub- 
lish a joint edition for distribution throughout the country ; 
this liberal offer was however declined on their part. 

Never before, in this or any other country, did any speech 
gain such rapid and general circulation. . . 



154 CHAPTER VII. 

The debate still continued after tlie conclusion of the con- 
test between Mr. Webster and Colonel Hayne, for weeks and 
even months. Commencing early in January, it dragged on, 
with fitful interruptions, till the 21st of May, on which day 
Colonel Benton, who had in truth provoked it, brought it to a 
close. The excitement gradually subsided, till, towards the 
end of the debate, the speakers addressed " empty boxes." 
Benton, Woodbury, Grrundy, Rowan and Livingston, each 
attempted, more or less creditably, a reply to Mr. Webster's 
positions. But their eloquence seemed cold, their arguments 
inefi"ective, after Mr. Webster's; spectators became indif- 
ferent — 

" As in a theatre, the eyes of men, 
After a well -graced actor leaves the stage, 
Are idly bent on him that enters next, 
Thinking his prattle to be tedious." 

The United Slates Tekgra'ph^ Mr. Calhoun's putative 
organ, in speaking of " the Great Debate in the Senate," said 
in the paper of the 8th of February — " The importance of 
this debate must be apparent to all. It is deeply felt here. 
The Senators who have spoken, and those who will speak, dis- 
charge a great and sacred duty to their country. It is not a 
holiday debate, but a real and eventful contest for the 
safety of the States, and the counteraction of the most 
daring schemes for the recovery of lost power, that our coun- 
try has ever witnessed. Mr. Webster has brought it forward, 
but he lacks courage to breast the storm -which he has ex- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 155 

cited. He has not been seen in the Senate since, except to 
vote for his party. He depends upon his speech, which is to 
go forth, North and West, to rally all that can be collected in 
the crusade against the States, against the South, and against 
the present administration. It must not go forth unanswered, 

and it will not." 

The answers came, " thick as autumnal leaves that strew 
the brooks in Yallambrosa;" and as rapidly disappeared. Few 
even of well-informed politicians have read them ; while, to 
the general student, they are mostly wholly unknown. Not 
that they were without talent ; some possessed far more than 
ordinary ability, but they have all been forgotten in the supe- 
rior interest excited by Mr. Webster's eifort. 

Mr. Woodbury's speech, as an argument, perhaps, followed 
Colonel Hayne's in ability. He took care to avoid, with the 
sagacity that distinguishes his character, the extreme doctrine 
of his southern ally. He would not acknowledge the consti- 
tutional right of a State to prevent the execution of a law of 
the United States believed by such State to be unconstitu- 
tional, but referred opposition to the inalienable right of re- 
sistance to oppression. In truth, he diverged but little from 
the line of argument adopted by Mr. Webster. 

His speech was grateful to the juste milieu of the Demo- 
cratic party in the Senate and the country. It also particu- 
larly pleased the distinguished Senator from Missouri. When 
Mr. Woodbury had concluded. Colonel Benton rose, and ex- 
tendin<r his ri^rht hand over the head of the Granite Senator, 



156 CHAPTER vir. 

much like a pope or cardinal pronouncing benediction, ex- 
claimed in a loud voice — " Yes, this is Peter, and this Peter 
is the rock on which the church of New-England democracy 
shall be built ;" and then added in a low tone, not supposed 
to be intended for the hearing of the Senate — " and the gates 
of Hell shall not prevail against him." 

Such things as this give a relief to the grave and solemn 
proceedings of the august Senate. 

Col. Benton himself spoke four days. He did not go into 
an elaborate argument upon the relative powers of the States 
and the Federal Government* — in which his success pro- 

* Col. Benton, however, gave the Senate his opinion upon the sub- 
ject which coincided too nearly with Mr. Hayne's ; the best answer to 
it is to be found in his own words, as spoken in the Senate of the United 
States, on the third day of .January last. Speaking of his constituents, 
he says : " They abide the law when it comes, be it what it may, sub- 
ject to the decision of the ballot-box and the judiciary. 

" I concur with the people of Missouri in this view of their duty, and 
believe it to be the only course consistent with the terms and intentions 
of our Constitution, and the only one which can save this Union from 
the fate of all the confederacies which have successively appeared and 
disappeared in the history of nations. Anarchy among the members 
and not tyranny in the head, has been the rock on which all such con- 
federacies have split. The authors of our present form of government 
knew the danger of this rock, and they endeavored to provide against it. 
They formed a union — not a league — a Federal Legislature to act upon 
persons, not upon States ; and they provided peaceful remedies for all 
the questions which could arise between the people and the government. 
They provided a federal judiciary to execute the federal laws when 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 157 

bably would have been fully equal to that of Col. Hayne or 
Mr. Woodbury — but rather indulged the Senate with a his- 
tory of parties during the late war with Great Britain, and 
also with a review of the action of Congress upon the subject 
of the public lands. His speech for one so long and various 
was not uninteresting;. 

Something perhaps should be said of the person who, igno- 
rant of its explosive qualities, threw this bomb into the Senate. 

No man assuredly ever achieved immortality easier than 
Mr. Foote, of Conn. As the author of the Resolution, he will 
go down to the latest posterity, while the names of many who 
shared in the debate will be lost in the early part of the 
journey ; are indeed even now almost forgotten. 

He was a man no otherwise distinguished, and perhaps in- 
found to be constitutional, and popular elections to repeal them when 
found to be bad. They formed a government in which the law and 
popular will, and not the sword, was to decide questions; and they 
looked upon the first resort to the sword for the decision of such ques- 
tions as the death of the Union. The old confederation was a league, 
with a legislature acting upon sovereignties, without power to enforce 
its decrees, and without union except at the will of the parties. It 
was powerless for government and a rope of sand for union. It was to 
escape from that helpless and tottering government that the present 
Constitution vv^as formed." 

Such a full recantation of political heresy required a degree of magna 
nimity and moral courage seldom found. Any man may commit errors 
. — but few, like the distinguished Senator from Missouri, have the hardi- 
hood to acknowledge and the manliness to correct them. 



358 CHAPTER VII. 

capable of any particular distinction. Amiable in private life, 
respectable but never eminent in public, of no ill-regulated 
ambition, nor eccentric vanity, he was one of the last to have 
been suspected of designing to give character or intellectual 
vitality to thought or action. And surely no man was more 
surprised than himself at the formidable consequences of his 
innocent act. What he had proposed as a harmless enquiry 
became through the agency of others the immediate cause of 
an animated, fiery discussion; in which personalities were 
given and retorted; provocations maliciously put forth, and 
indignantly thrown back ; and argument the most profound, 
eloquence the most impassioned, embodied in language the 
ttiost chaste and sublime, involved in the discussion of the most 
momentous interests. He was the most confounded at his 
own importance. To use the language of Sir Walter Scott, he 
felt " the terrors of a child, who has, in heedless sport, put 
in motion some powerful piece of machinery ; and while he 
beholds wheels revolving, chains clashing, cylinders rolling 
around him, is equally astonished at the tremendous powers 
which his weak agency has called into action, and terrified for 
the consequences which he is compelled to await without the 
possibility of averting them." But it must not be inferred 
from the mention of no other name, that Mr. AVebster alone 
of the Opposition Senators participated in this debate. Such 
an opinion would do injustice to the history of the affair. 
Messrs. Sprague and Holmes, of Maine, Barton, of Missouri, 
Johnston, of La., Clayton, of Delaware, and Bobbins, of Bhode 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 159 

Island, with otherSj made speeches, and good speeches. Mr. 
Clayton made a most able argument, full of historical research, 
upon the various duties and powers of the co-ordinate branches 
of the Government. 

Barton, of Missouri, severely castigated his colleague, fill- 
ing the part in the drama declined by Mr. \yebster. He was 
a man, like Swift, of coarse invective, and coarser humor. 
Equal to Eandolph in bitterness, he excelled even that dreaded 
satirist in personal vituperation. Of an original and eccentric 
mind, a rapid though not profound thinker, his speeches often 
produced an effect, more than proportioned, perhaps, to their 
intrinsic merit. 

While he was speaking on this occasion, the Vice-President 
called him to order, for using " expressions inadmissible in a 
deliberative body." Circumstances, it is said, alter cases. 
When John Eandolph, a few years previous, was transgress- 
ing not merely the rules of debate but of courtesy, in calling 
the President a Puritan, and the Secretary of State a black- 
leg, Mr. Calhoun refused to call him to order, on the ground 
that it was his sole office to preside over the deliberations of 
the Senate, and not to keep order in it. Mr. Barton, how- 
ever, could now be reprimanded though much less guilty. 

Mr. Sprague, of Maine, made an excellent speech in de- 
fence of New England, temperate and conclusive. Other 
Senators of the anti-Jackson party distinguished themselves 
more or less in the debate. Some, who did not speak, re- 
frained, not through lack of ability, but from a conviction that 



160 CHAPTER VII. 

the occasion did not need their voices. Chambers, of Maryland, 
Burnett, of Ohio, Seymour, of Vt., and Ruggles, of Ohio, 
were equal to any forensic combat. These and others formed 
a cor;ps du reserve^ which could have been brought up, when 
ever the nature of the contest seemed to require their aid. 

In speaking of the political and personal friends of Mr. 
"Webster on this occasion, it would be injustice to make no al- 
lusion to Mr. Silsbee, of Mass. His position as colleague of Mr. 
Webster, — the intimacy that subsisted between them, — his cha- 
racter, ability, and influence in the Senate provoke and justify 
the mention of his name. In this important crisis, he stood 
manfully by his colleague, gave him advice, aid and sympathy, 
wholly and devotedly. What the sympathy of an earnest, ar- 
dent, capable and experienced friend is worth they can only 
tell, who have been in exigencies to require it. 

Mr. Webster and Mr. Silsbee were colleagues other than in 
position. They did not represent Massachusetts merely, but 
the same liberal ideas and principles. Harmonious in senti- 
ment as in action, they consulted together under no restriction 
of official etiquette, but freely, frankly, fraternally. It was of 
much advantage to Mr. Webster, to be able to lean upon such 
a man, in such an emergency ; to feel sure of warm sympathy, 
unbounded friendship, and untiring zeal, while he battled 
against such odds, for reputation and political existence. 

There was no envy in Mr. Silsbee ; no malice ; no jealous 
repining at another's superiority. His colleague, he knew, 
towered above him, and overshadowed him. But he was not 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 161 

one of the sickly plants that languish in the shade. He had 
inherent vitality enough, constitutional vigor enough, to live, 
and grow strono; and vio^orous, without incessant sunshine. 

The profession to which he was educated did not insist upon his 
being an orator. And yet few, trained to forensic pursuits, knew 
better to express their meaning ; or could reach, by shorter 
path, the understanding of their auditors, and gain so entirely 
their convictions. The sincerity of his purpose gave force and 
transparency to his language. No man in the Senate enjoyed, 
or deserved, more respect. 



Mr. Webster was not only assailed in the Senate by the chiefs 
of the administration party, but by the democratic press, gener- 
ally throughout the country. The metropolitan newspaper, — 
the TJ. S. Telcgrajp/i^ — whose editor was printer to the Senate, 
attacked him with relentless malice. This kind of assault 
troubled him most, as he had no means of meeting or repelling 
it. Some action in the matter, however, he thought demand- 
ed by his position as Senator, and that of the editor as an offi- 
cer of the Senate. Accordingly, on the 28th of January he 
rose in his seat in the Senate and said : " A newspaper has 
been put into my hands this morning, purporting to be print- 
ed and published in this city by Duff Green, who is printer to 
the Senate. In this, I find an article referring to the debate 
in the Senate yesterday ; and in that article, among other 
statements equally false, it is said, that Mr. Webster contend- 
ed that ' the National Government was established by the peo- 



162 CHAPTER VII. 

pie, who had imparted to it unlimited powers over the States 
and Constitution.' 

" I am of opinion that we ought to leave our seats alto- 
gether, or protect ourselves from atrocious and wilful calum- 
nies, committed by persons who are admitted on this floor, and 
receive from our hands large disbursements of public money. 
It becomes us to yield our places here to men of better spirit 
and go home, or show that we are not to be bullied or slander- 
ed out of a free and full exercise of our functions." 

He then gave notice that on a similar occurrence of a simi- 
lar oflfence, he should make a specific motion. 

His opponents finding where they could assail him with the 
most injury to him and impunity to themselves reiterated the 
charges against him, in the Telegraph, with additional viru- 
lence. Mr. Webster, in consequence, submitted the following 
resolution to the Senate : " Resolved^ That the Senate will on 
the fourth day of February next proceed to the choice of a 
printer to the Senate." This resolution, however, he consent- 
ed soon after, on the advice of friends, to withdraw ; and no 
farther action was had on the matter. 



If Mr. Webster needed aught else to satisfy his ambition 
than the proud consciousness of having ably discharged his 
duty to his country, the warm testimonials of grateful admira- 
tion that poured in upon him from the most distinguished in- 
dividuals, in every part of the Union, might have been consid- 
ered fully sufficient. Massachusetts, — to whose name he has 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 163 

erected a monmnent no more perishable than her soil, — came 
eagerly forward to evince her earnest gratitude. The most 
eminent in the State, for piety, learning, or public worth, sent 
him letters of thanks for the great service he had rendered the 
State and the Union — " their children's children" — they wrote 
— "would bless him, as they did, to the latest posterity." 
Resolutions of a majority of both branches of the Legislature, 
and of numerous assemblies throughout the State and New 
England, all expressive of the deepest gratitude for his success- 
ful vindication of the name and character of -the State and 
New England from undeserved reproach, were forwarded to 
him, in due time. 

Nor was praise of his effort confined to his State or New 
England. It was general, as the service he had performed to 
his country. His exposition and defence of the Constitution 
drew forth the expression of thanks from every quarter. 
" The ability with which the great argument is treated" — 
writes the Hon. William Gaston, formerly a distinguished mem- 
ber of Congress from North Carolina — " the patriotic fervor 
with which the Union is asserted, give you claim to the gratitude 
of every one who loves his country and regards the Constitu- 
tion as its best hope and surest stay. My engrossing occupa- 
tions leave me little leisure for any correspondence except on 
business, — but I have resolved to seize a moment to let you 
know that with us there is scarcely a division of opinion among 
the intelligent portion of the community. All of them, whose 
understanding or whose conscience are not surrendered to the 



164 CHAPTER VII. 

servitude of faction greet your eloquent efforts with unmixed 
approbation," 

" I congratulate you," writes Mr. Clay, " on the very great 
addition which you have made, during the session, to your 
previous high reputation. Your speeches, and particularly in 
reply to Mr. Hayne, are the theme of praise from every tongue ; 
and I have shared in the delio;ht which all have felt." 

Commendation of the speech from persons almost equally 
distinguished, reached Mr. ^yebster ; from one, still more so. 
Jajies Madison, one of the principal framers of the Consti- 
tution, and, in safest opinion, its best interpreter, wrote to a 
friend soon after reading this speech, in warm terms of its 
ability, its constitutional character, and its " tremendous effect 
upon the doctrines of nullification." 



There is no such thing as extemporaneous speating, strictly 
considered. No man can address an assembly in language 
worthy to be remembered, without some previous study of his 
subject. The command of a whole vocabulary will not supply 
ideas ; verbal fluency is even dangerous to their proper expres- 
sion. We lose the substance in the shadow. 

Certainly, therefore, it will not be contended, that Mr. 
Webster's entire reply to Col. Hayne was the inspiration of 
the moment — that he took no thought, before speech, of what 
he should say. Most undoubtedly, some of the important 
questions which he discussed on this celebrated occasion had 
received, previously, his attention and careful consideration. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 165 

The Tariff, the Public Lands, and the Constitution, were 
matters of a too important character not to demand the recog- 
nition and deep study of any statesman. 

But of what is generally understood by preparation, Mr. 
Webster had made little : less, perhaps, for an occasion of 
eipal importance, than any orator of ancient or modern times. 
The orators of antiquity, it is well known, elaborated their 
sentences no less than their thoughts ; were as anxious about 
a phrase as a sentiment ; while those most celebrated of modern 
days have been also most distinguished for previous study. 
Burke and Canning, more especially, polished and amended, 
revised and re-revised, till the original thought was hardly 
recoo-nizable in its last dress. 

Mr. Webster's brief on this occasion did not cover one side 
of a sheet of paper, the major part of it being in relation to the 
Public Lands ; while the most important topic of the speech, 
that which related to the history and interpretation of the 
Constitution, was discussed iviikout a single note. A fact that 
seems the more remarkable, when it is recollected that Mr. 
Webster had never been engaged in the discussion of a Con- 
stitutional question at any time in his previous Parliamentary 
career. It is true, however, that in his professional life he 
had had occasion to examine and argue some important points 
of Constitutional Law, as in the Dartmouth College case, and 
in the steamboat case of Gibbons vs. Ogden^ already alluded 
to. But these cases, important as they were to the proper 
settlement of vexed questions, and involving as they do high 



1(56 CHAPTER VII. 

principles of Constitutional law, did not agitate the delicately- 
adjusted political relations between the States and the Federal 
Government. This question was first examined in full in this 
debate. Undoubtedly, however, Mr. Webster had dwelt upon 
it before in his mind ; the whole force and capacity of it were 
not opened to him at the moment, like a revelation. He was 
full of it, and required no promptings and no guides. The 
mind, contend the metaphysicians, always thinks; and Mr. 
Webster's, more than other men's, may have been exercised 
upon such lofty themes as these. 



No one can read this speech of his in reply to Hayne, or 
any or either of his most celebrated productions, without being 
reminded of scriptural passages. In truth, no writer or speaker 
of any reputation, of the age, is more imbued with the spirit of 
Hebrew poetry than Mr. Webster. Those nearest admitted 
to his intimacy would be the readiest to bear testimony to his 
familiar acquaintance with the literature of the Old Bible. 
" The hidden treasure of poetry," (I quote from recollection 
merelyj " is the Hebrew books. Few persons remount to the 
source, to ' Siloa's brook, that flowed fast by the oracle of God.' 
There is no writer in any language, ancient or modern, more 
poetical than Habakkuk. In the translation, even, he appears 
to greater advantage than the heroic poets — than Homer, or 
those that followed him. In the vernacular, besides the energy 
of the words there is a rythm, a metre, as much as in the Iliad 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 167 

or Eneid. The translation has not always destroyed it ; as 
take, for instance, the following lines : 

' Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, 
Neither shall fruit be in the vines ; 
The labor of the olive shall fail, 
And the fields shall yield no meat ; 
The flock shall be cut oiF from the fold, 
And there shall be no herd in the stalls : 
Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.' 

Here now is a regular equiponderance of sentences till you 
get to the last line, which is double. Then what beautiful and 
expressive language ! ' The labor of the olive !' In what 
other book will you find an expression of like energy and 
beauty } The tree itself is, by a bold metaphor, made to 
contribute, spontaneously, to the wants of man, as if it had 
thews and muscles, and was capable of action. * The field 
shall yield no meat.' What a stronger impression the word 
* meat' conveys, than product, or fruit, or any common term. 
It is true — poetical. It at once gives you the idea of all that 
maketh glad the heart of man ; and the failure of the fields, 
therefore, falls upon the mind with a heavier gloom. 

The whole chapter is sublime. I read it often, and each 
time with still greater admiration ' The prayer of Habakkuk,' 
as it is called." 

It would be unfair to Mr. Webster to attempt to give his 
language from remembrance. No author, of another tongue, 
would suffer more from translation. Some of the strongest 



168 CHAPTER vir. 

expressions, no less than nicer shades of sentiment, would bo 
lost in the transmission. He must be heard to be appreciated. 

Those admitted to the intimacy of his conversation, can tell 
of the eloquent fervor with which he speaks of the inspired 
writings — how much light he can throw upon a difficult text — 
how much beauty lend to expressions that would escape all 
but the eye of genius — what new vigor he can give to the most 
earnest thoughts — and what elevation to even sublimity. " It 
would be impossible," says a distinguished orator from another 
section of the country, " for any one to listen half an hour to 
Mr. Webster on the Scriptures, and not believe in their inspi- 
ration — or his.'''' 

But while Mr. Webster's public productions and private 
conversations attest how deeply he is imbued with the spirit 
of the Scriptures, neither the one nor the other ever contained 
the slightest irreverent allusion to any passage in them — any- 
thing in the way of illustration, analogy or quotation, that 
could seem to question their sanctity. He has been scrupu- 
lously delicate in this regard ; and therein differs widely from 
most of his contemporaries in public life on this continent : for 
it is made matter of reproach to us, as a nation, that our public 
speakers, in Congress particularly, take the grossest liberties 
with the most sacred texts of the Scriptures — use them to 
garnish the most ordinary topics, or illustrate their own ignoble 
pursuits and histories ^ and, in fact, pay them no more regard 
than profane books. 

It is not so in England* Good taste, if not a religious 



DANIEL WEBSTER, 169 

sense, avoids any siicli irreverence. When Lord Plunkctt 
once, in the House of Commons, in speaking of the great an- 
ticipations that were entertained of George IV. 's accession to 
the throne, alluded to it as the gre.yt coming, the members 
of the House were shocked, and the speaker felt the rebuke. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The same year in which Mr. Webster gained his forensic 
laurels in the Senate of the United States, secured him 
also a great professional triumph. All of New England, 
at that time of sufl&cient age and capacity to have compre- 
hended it, will recollect the deep, intense sensation produced 
throughout the community that year by the extraordinary mur- 
der of Joseph White, in Salem, Massachusetts, on the night 
of the 6th of April. The respectability, wealth, and ad- 
vanced age of the murdered man, the mysterious nature of 
the midnight murder, the strange and romantic details con- 
nected with its perpetration, the relationship of one of the 
assassins to the victim, and other circumstances of almost 
equal interest, produced an excitement at the time, which was 
as deep as it was general, and which has dwelt upon the mind 
ever since with nearly all the distinctness of its first impres- 
sion. 

A few weeks after the murder, Richard Crowningshield, 
George Crowningshield, brothers, Joseph J. Knapp, who had 
married a daughter of the neice of the murdered man, and 
John Francis Knapp, also brothers, were arrested, on a charge 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 171 

of having perpetrated the murder, and committed for trial. 
Joseph J. Knapp, soon after his arrest, under promise of 
favor from the government, was induced to make a full con- 
fession of the crime, and of the circumstances attending it. 
A few days after his disclosure had been made and become 
known, Richard Crowningshield, who was supposed to have been 
the principal assassin, committed suicide. 

By act of the Legislature, a special session of the Supreme 
Court was holden at Salem, in July, for the trial of the pri- 
soners. In the ordinary arrangement of the courts, but one 
week in a year, was allotted for the whole court to sit in that 
county ; and, as in the trial of all capital offences, a majority 
of the court were required to be present, and as weeks would 
in all probability be consumed in this trial, but for such inter- 
position of the Legislature, three years would not have been 
sufficient for the purpose. It was for this reason and not on 
account of the excitement in the community, and the interest 
felt in the result, that the special session was ordered. 

Before this court, John Francis Knapp was arraigned as 
principal in the murder, and Greorge Crowningshield and Jo- 
seph J. Knapp, accessories. 

If the suicide of Richard Crowninojshield before the com- 
mencement of the trial, added to the already excited state of the 
public feeling, the unexpected withdrawal of his confession by 
Joseph J. Knapp, and his refusal, on being called upon, to 
testify, had no tendency to allay it. 

Mr. Webster, upon the request of the prosecuting officers 



172 CHAPTER VIII. 

of the government, appeared as counsel and assisted in the 

trial. 

In the earlier part of his argument to the jury, Mr. Webster 
said—" Gentlemen, this is a most extraordinary case. In 
some respects, it has hardly a precedent anywhere ; certainly 
none in our New England history This bloody drama exhi- 
bited no suddenly excited ungovernable rage. The actors in 
it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing 
upon their virtue and overcoming it, before resistance could 
begin. Nor did they do the deed, to glut savage vengeance, 
or satiate long settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calcu- 
lating, money-making murder. It was all ' hire and salary, 
not revenge.' It was the weighing of money against life ; 
the counting out of so many pieces of silver, against so many 
ounces of blood." 

In speaking of the supposed self-congratulation of the mur- 
derer, as he escapes, unseen by human eye, after the perpe- 
tration of the deed, Mr. AVebster describes the danger of a 
fatal secret in language that makes the reader almost feel the 
consciousness of guilt himself. "It is accomplished. The 
deed is done. The assassin retreats ; retraces his steps to the 
window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. 
He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, no ear has 
heard him. The sea-et is his own, and it is safe ! 

"Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a 
secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has 
neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 173 

say it is safe. Not to spsak of that eye which glances throuf'-h 
all disguises, and beholds everything as in the splendor ot 
noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even 
by men. True it is, generally speaking, that ' murder will 
out.' True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth 
so govern things, that those who break the law of heaven, by 
shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. 
A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, 
every circumstance, connected with the time and place ; a 
thousaud ears catch every whisper ; a thousand excited minds 
intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and 
ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of dis- 
covery. Meanwhile the guilty soul cannot keep its own 
S3cret. It is false to itself; or rather, it feels an irresistible 
impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its 
guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The 
human heart was not made for the residence of such an in- 
habitant. It finds itself preyed upon by a torment which it 
does not acknowledge to God nor man. A vulture is devour- 
in^^- it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance, either from 
heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses 
soon comes to possess him ; and, like the evil spirits of which 
we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it 
will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and 
damandino- disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in 
his fac3, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in 
the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. 



174 CHAPTER VIII. 

It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it con- 
quers his prudence. When suspicions, from without, begin to 
embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, 
the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst 
forth. It must be confessed ; it will he confessed ; there is no 
refuge fr 09)1 confession but suicide, ami suicide is confession.''^ 

The great difficulty Mr. "Webster had to surmount in the 
case was, the doubt in the minds of the jury, that John Fran- 
cis Knapp was present in the vicinity at the time of the mur- 
der, for the purpose of aiding and abetting it. Richard 
Crowningshield was the actual perpetrator of the murder ; he 
alone entered the house, and gave the old man his death- 
wounds. But, by his own act, he was placed beyond the 
reach of an earthly tribunal ; and, unless it was demonstrated 
to the satisfaction of the jury, that, on the night of the mur- 
der, John Francis Knapp was aiding, iii constructive presence, 
the accomplishment of the deed, and thus proved a principal 
to it, the three prisoners, however guilty in public opinion and 
in fact, must have been discharged, since the one indicted as 
principal being pronounced innocent, the accessories could not 
of course have been convicted. 

The admirable ingenuity of argument by which Mr. "Web- 
ster led the minds of the jury to this conclusion, is equal to 
anything of the kind in the annals of the profession. The in- 
terpretation he gave to the various and somewhat contradic- 
tory evidence upon the subject ; the manner in which he com- 
bined circumstances at first seemingly independent, dove-tail- 



DANIEL ^YEBSTER. 175 

ing them together so that then- separation appeared impossible, 
and the full solution which he returned to the sujrircsted doubts 
of opposite counsel, in regard to identity of person, &c., 
rendered Knapp's guilt, in the opinion of the jury, a matter 
not merely of vehement probability, but absolute necessity. 

He was convicted, and his associates also. 

The history of the murder is a singular one ; and, were it 
not that truth is stranger than fiction, would hardly be credit- 
ed in all of its details. 

The first conception of the murder arose, it is said, from 
the conversation and character of the victim. The idea of 
murder was not native to those who plotted it ; but from their 
education, position, and associations, was abhorrent to their 
minds. They had led somewhat extravagant and reckless 
lives, it is true, but nothing had been imputed to them indica- 
tive of cruel dispositions or hardened consciences. Their 
victim, in his familiar conversation, to which of course they 
were admitted — the Knapps at least — was accustomed to 
speak, with some carelessness of expression, of things worthy 
of reverence ; to profess a doubt of eternal life, and a reckless 
impatience of this tedious existence. J. J. Knapp, and 
others, often listening to such talk, began to think of indulg- 
ino- the wishes of the speaker, and finally came to the conclu- 
eion, that, as he stood shivering on the brink, seemingly desi- 
rous, yet fearing to plunge, it would be no unkindness in them 
to afibrd him a little aid. 

The murder was committed through a mistake of law. 



176 CHAPTER VIII. 

Some weeks previous to it, Joseph Knapp applied to a lawyer 
to ascertain the law as to the distribution of the estate of the 
old gentleman, in case he should die intestate. The lawyer 
advised him, that the estate would descend to his nephews and 
neices, his next of kin, j^er stirpes, and not per capita ; Knapp 
thence concluded that his mother-in-law, who was a neice of 
the old gentleman, and sole representative of one of the two 
branches, would inherit half the estate, which was very large, 
and that in consequence, it was a matter of great moment that 
he (Mr. White) should die and leave no will. 

The murder was committed too, through a mistake oi fact, 
for though the murderers got a will, it was not the will. The 
one destroyed was made sometime before the murder ; another 
was found after the murder, bequeathing the mass of the pro- 
perty to the other branch of the family. This circumstance, 
of Knapp's not being benefited by the murder, for some 
time averted the suspicion of his being engaged in it. But 
when it had been ascertained that he was a party to it, his ig- 
norance of the existence of the second will solved the whole 
mystery, revealed the motive of the act. 

The actual murderer, Richard Crowningshield, was indicted, 
arrested and committed to close confinement in prison, on the 
testimony of one who was wholly ignorant of the truth or 
falsehood of what he testified. Hatch, the witness against 
him, was a felon imprisoned at New Bedford, at the time the 
murder was committed ; he falsely pretended to be able to 
testify to material facts. Attorney-General Morton, at the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 177 

Supreme Judicial Court which sat in Essex, a few weeks after 
the murder, moved for a Habeas Corjpus ad Testificandum^ 
and Hatch was carried in chains to Ipswich, and on his testi- 
mony, wholly false, a bill of indictment was found against 
Richard Crowningsheldand three other persons, who were ar- 
rested and committed for trial. 

Richard Crowningshield did not despond at first in his impri- 
sonment, because he knew he was charged with the crime on 
false testimony ; but a month after, when he heard that some 
of his accomplices had turned States' evidence, and disclosed 
the truth, his heart failed him, as he contemplated the seem- 
ing desperatcness of his condition, and soon abandoning all for 
lost, he committed suicide, to escape a public ignominious 
death ; while if he had boldly stood the chances of a trial be- 
fore a jury, he needs must have been acquitte(i, notwith- 
standing all the disclosures, for want of sufficient legal testi- 
mony — the disclosures, so far as he was concerned, having 
been mere hearsay, which is not, technically, evidence. But, 
from want of moral courage, he committed suicide, and sui- 
cide was confession. 

Joseph J. Knapp, it will be recollected, consented at one 
time to be States' evidence, and to make a full confession of 
the whole truth ; had he remained steadfast to this compact 
with the government, he would thereby have saved his own 
life, and, by his testimony, acquitted his brother Francis. 
His testimony would have proved that Francis was in Brown- 
street — the IccaU of the murder — without the knowledge and 



178 CHAPTER vrii. 

against the wishes of Richard Crowningshield, and that his sole 
jnirpose in going there was to ascertain from him, historically, 
whether the deed had been done. It was proved at the trial, 
that Francis was in Brown-street at the time of the murder, 
and the jury from all the evidence, and in the absence of any 
proof that he was there for any other purpose than to aid 
Hichard Crowningshield, came to the conclusion, that he was 
there expressly for that purpose ; and, consequently, found 
liim guilty as principal. He was thus convicted for want of 
his brother's testimony. But this very confession of Joseph 
Knapp, though withdrawn before trial, and thus, technically, 
ruled out of court, must have produced some influence upon 
the minds of the jury disastrous to the defendants. A rule of 
law could prevent the admission of the testimony into court, 
but not into the minds of men. This confession revealed 
certain facts — admitted as evidence through the person to 
whom they were made known — such as the concealment of 
the club by which Crowningshield perpetrated the murder, and 
other auxiliary circumstances, without which it might have 
been difficult to have obtained conviction. Thus, by his 
double weakness — first in confessing, and then retracting — 
Joseph Knapp accomplished his brother's conviction of a 
crime which was perpetrated for his own benefit. 

Some censure at the time was passed upon the conduct of 
the defence. The eminent counsel, it was thought, committed 
the fatal error of bi'inging forward no plan, hypothesis or 
theory which could admit of the innocence of the accused. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 179 

but contented himself ratlier with a kind of guerilla warfare, 
attacking the positions or witnesses of the other side, in a 
series of flying skirmishes. A kind of defence, which, in 
criminal cases, never has succeeded, and probably never will. 

It was thought also at the time, that the learned counsel for 
the defence betrayed a want of professional equanimity, if not 
courtesy, that they made too many and too lachrymose com- 
plaints of the professional aid the prosecuting officer retained 
on the trial, compelling Mr. Webster to say to the jury, that, 
" In the course of his whole life, he had never before heard 
so much said about the particular counsel who happen to be 
employed ; as if it were extraordinary that other counsel tham 
the usual officers of the government should be assisting in the 
conducting of a case on the part of the government." And 
that they exhibited, in fine, indications of too captious a 
spirit, and too irascible temperament. 

The opinion in regard to the ma,nagement of the prosecu- 
tion was warml}^ approbatory. It was, indeed, generally ad- 
mitted that, but for Mr. Webster's masterly argument, a con- 
viction would never have been procured against the prisoners. 
The earnest and resistless logic, by which he demonstrated the 
necessity of their guilt, dispelled the doubts which had hung 
over the case from complicated and contradictory evidence. 
Their moral guilt might have been suspected, their /e^a/ guilt, 
without him, could not have been established. 

The closino; words of his argument, in which he reminds tlae 
jury of the obligation they were under to discharge their duty, 



180 CHAPTER viir. 

have been quoted before, but may not be unworthy of repeti- 
tion here : " A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omni- 
present, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of 
the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea, duty 
performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness 
or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, In the 
darkness as in the light, our obligations are yet with us. We 
cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They 
are with us in this life, will be with us at its close ; and, in that 
scene of inconceivable solemnity, which lies yet farther on- 
ward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the conscious- 
ness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to 
console us, so far as God may have given us grace to perform 
it." 



CHAPTER IX. 

Soon after the reply to Hayno, the principles of constitu- 
tional law evolved therefrom, were put to the severest test. 
The fatal doctrine of nullification, brought boldly forward m 
Colonel Hayne's argument, for the fiirst time, gained, during 
the two years that followed, a strength, and following in a cer- 
tain section, suiScient to create a feeling of sincere apprehen- 
sion on the part of the friends of the Union. 

The motives of actors we can judge of solely from their 
revelation in deeds. There is no process, moral or legal, to 
reach the conscience. As does a man, so, to all possible un- 
derstanding, he thmks. The reasons assigned, so liberally and 
authoritatively at times, for the conduct of public men, by the 
historian or biographer, are those rather of the writer than 
actor, in a generality of cases. 

The narrator can give facts, from which each intelligent 
reader for himself is able to draw satisfactory conclusions. 

Within a year of the famous controversy between Mr. Web- 
ster and Colonel Hayne, Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Forsyth, 
availing themselves of the fortuitous circumstance of a femi- 



182 CHAPTER IX. 

nine quarrel in General Jackson's cabinet, to ensure a long- 
premeditated intention, produced a rupture between Greneral 
Jackson and Mr. Calhoun ; a rupture not only of political but 
personal relations, and of extremer virulence from the pre- 
ceding intimacy. General Jackson, alike violent in enmity 
and friendship, began now to cherish and express feelings of 
deadly hatred towards his associate in the government. 

Mr. Calhoun was necessarily precipitated into opposition to 
his former political friends. He could not remain in the De- 
mocratic party against General Jackson. There was no 
catholicity unrecognized by the head of the faith. Himself 
and friends, therefore, found themselves in compulsory hostil- 
ity to the administration. This hostility, originally personal, 
became soon, by the operation of natural causes, one of mea- 
sures and principle. To those who are not accustomed to 
dwell upon the evolutions of politicians, and notice with what 
a strange rapidity they are performed, it might appear no 
little surprising that these two eminent individuals, on taking 
their latitude after the somewhat long duration of their personal 
conflict, discovered that each had wandered very far from the 
course in which he had been moving, and in entirely oppo- 
site direction the one to the other. Up to the accession of 
Mr. Adams to the Presidency, in 1825, Mr. Calhoun had been 
known as an ardent, sincere and efficient advocate of the 
liberal powers of the general government, especially as re- 
garded the institution of a protective tariff; while General 
Jackson, except in Pennsylvania, had been considered as 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 183 

favoring^ at least in heart, the theory and policy of Mr. Craw- 
ford, the leader of the strict constructionists. But now, 
their jjositions were wholly reversed ; Mr. Calhoun contending 
for the right of each State to oppose the measures of the 
general government, even to nullification — General Jackson 
insisting upon a large and liberal interpretation of the Consti- 
tution, and the putting down of resistance to the exercise of 
the powers it grants, by the force of the general government. 
The controversy, as is ever the case, became more bitter and 
violent, from the former friendship between the two most dis- 
tinguished parties to it. Notwithstanding their endeavors to 
give it an exclusive character of principle, it could not but be 
felt there was in it great personal vindictiveness. No terms of 
reproach, accusation or denunciation were spared on either 
hand, by the friends of either party towards their opponents ; 
Calhoun-men and Jackson-men hated each other with a hatred 
far more unsparing than either felt towards their late political 
opponents. 

In spite of the defection of Mr. Calhoun and his friends, 
General Jackson was re-elected President, in the fall of 1832, 
by a large majority over Mr. Clay, the candidate of the Op- 
position—or, " National Republicans," as they then styled 
themselves — and Mr. Van Buren, Vice-President ; South 
Carolina alone of the Southern Democratic States, withholding 
its vote from the candidates of the Democratic party. 

Immediately upon the result of the canvass, the people of 
that State, urged to temporary phrenzy by their political 



184 CHAPTER IX. 

leaders in and out of Congress, met by delegates in conven- 
tion, and passed what they called an ordinance^ establishing 
new and fundamental principles. This convention overthrew 
the whole revenue system. It did not limit itself to the acts 
of 1828 or 1832, but adopted a solemn declaration that, in 
their State, no taxes should be collected. In this declaration 
they stated that South Carolina had thrown herself into the 
breach, and would stand foremost in resistance to the laws of 
the Union ; and they solemnly called upon the citizens of the 
State to stand by the principles of the ordinance. The 
Legislature of the State, meeting soon after, ratified this ordi- 
nance, and declared the tariff acts unconstitutional, and 
utterly null and void. It passed an act besides, directing the 
enlisting and enrollment of volunteers, and advised all the 
citizens to put themselves in military array. 

The excitement in the State became intense. The whole 
State was in arms, or ready to be so at a moment's warning. 
A military spirit e^^erywhere prevailed. The blue cockade 
with the Palmetto button, was almost universally worn, and 
musters were held every day. The city of Charleston wore 
the appearance of a military depot ; and it was generally sup- 
posed, that the first attempt to enforce the revenue laws of 
the United States, would produce instantaneous collision be- 
tween the forces of the general government and of the State. 

General Hayne resigned his seat in the Senate of the 
United States, and was elected Governor of the State, to 
meet the emergency ; and Mr. Calhoun, resigning his office as 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 185 

Vice-Presideut — three months before its constitutional expira- 
tion — succeeded General Hayne in the Senate. 

The state of public aSiiirs threatened a fatal crisis. G-eno- 
ral Jackson, unterrified by the belligerent appearance of South 
Carolina, determined to enforce the law, at every hazard. 
His cabinet, indeed, maintained a profound silence in regard 
to his intentions ; but some of his most intimate frisnds an- 
nounced that he would immediately employ the naval foice of 
the country, and blockade Charleston. Everywhere, throughout 
the country, an anxious feverish apprehension of someimmediats 
catastrophe agitated the minds of men. 

Early in December Congress met. The vacant chair was 
filled by the election of Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, as 
President of the Senate, on the fifth ballot, by a vote of seven- 
teen to fourteen for John Tyler, of Virginia. The Senate 
was composed as follows : 

Maine — John Holmes, Peleg Sprague. 

New Ilamfihire — Samuel Bell, Isaac Hill. 
/^ Massachusetts — Nathaniel Silsbee, Daniel Webster. 

Rhode Island — N. R. Knight, Asher Robbins. 

Connecticut — Samuel A. Foot, Gid. Tomlinson. 

New Yor^— Charles E. Dudley, Silas Wright. 

New Jersey — Mahlon Dickerson, Theo. Frelinghuysen. 

Pennsijlvania — Geo. M. Dallas, Wm. Wilkins. 

Delaware — John M. Clayton, Arnold Naudain. 

Maryland — Ezekiel F. Chambers, Samuel Smith. 

Virginia — John Tyler, William C. Rives. 



18G CHAPTER IX. 

North Carolina — Bedford Brown, Willie P. Mangum. 

South Carolina — SteiDhen D. Miller, John C. Calhoun. 

Georgia — Geo. M. Troup, John Forsyth. 

Kentucky — Greo. M. Bibb, Henry Clay. 

Tennessee — Felix Grundy, Hugh L. White. 

Ohio — Thomas Ewing, Benjamin Buggies. 

Louisiana — Josiah S. Johnston, Geo. A. Waggaman. 

Indiana — William Hendricks, John Tipton. 

Mississippi — Geo. Poindexter, John Black. 

Illinois — Elias K. Kane, John M. Kobinson. 

Alabama — William B. King, Gabriel Moore. 

Missouri — Thos H. Benton, Alexander Buckner. 

Many of these names have an " odor of nationality" about 
them ; and all of them are transcribed here, in order that 
those not great in themselves may afford relief to the others' 
greatness. 

Mr. Calhoun did not arrive in time to be present at the 
opening of the Senate. His arrival was awaited with no 
little impatience. Some apprehension was entertained that 
he would be arrested on his way, on a charge of treason against 
the government. General Jackson had indulged in a threat 
of that kind ; and those, who knew he seldom threatened but 
he meant to do, were in momentary expectation of such an 
event. 

On the 10th of December, appeared General Jackson's 
celebrated proclamation against nullification Probably, no 
document ever issued from the Executive Department which 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 187 

gave rise to a more profound sensation. It confounded alike 
friend and foe of the adnuuistration. This State paper was 
the production of Mr. Livingston, then Secretary of State, 
though it bears in many pages marks of General Jackson's 
dictation. His will penetrates every sentence of it. Mr. 
Webster, in the preceding October, in a speech at Worcester, 
Massachusetts, had reproached the administration for having 
done nothing and said nothing, to arrest the revolutionary 
doctrines of nullification. In this speech we had recapitulated 
the powers and duties of the general government, as pre- 
viously defined in his reply to Hayne, and urged the necessity 
of their exercise. But at the same time, and in equally forci- 
ble language, he took ground against the employment of mili- 
tary force. " For one" — he said — " I raise my voice before- 
hand against the unauthorized employment of military power, 
and against superseding the authority of the laws, by an 
armed force, under the pretence of putting down nullification. 
The President has no authority to blockade Charleston ; the 
President has no authority to employ military force till he 
shall be duly required so to do by law and by the civil autho- 
rities. His duty is to cause the laws to be executed. His 
duty is to support the civil authority. His duty is, if the laws 
be resisted, to employ the military force of the country, if ne- 
cessary, for their support and execution ; but to do all this in 
compliance only with law, and with decisions of the tribunals." 
Mr. Webster, on his way to Washington in December, first 
heard of the proclamation in New Jersey, from a traveller, 



188 CHAPTER IX. 

unknown to Li in, and to wboni he also was unknown, who had 
just laft the metropolis. This person told him, as news, that 
General Jackson had just issued a proclamation against nulli- 
fication, " taken altogether from Webster's speech at Wor- 
cester." 

There certainly is a resemblance — strange indeed, if unin- 
tentional — between, not the sentiments alone, but the very 
language of these two productions. 

To General Jackson's proclamation, Governor Hayne issued 
a counter-proclamation, denouncing the attitude of the gene- 
ral government towards the State of South Carolina, and 
threatening to resist to the last extremity, the enforcement of 
its jurisdiction over the citizens of the State. 

The " crisis" evidently approached. The United States' 
troops were concentrated, in some force, at Augusta and 
Charleston, seemingly for the purpose of repressing any in- 
surrectionary or rebellious movement in the State ; while on 
the other side, equal preparation was made. The militia in 
certain sections of the State were called out and drilled, 
muskets were put in order, swords cleaned and sharpened, and 
depots of provisions and supplies established. Officers, na- 
tives of the State, in the army and navy of the United States 
contemplated resigning their commissions, and flying to the 
defence of the State. While some foreio;n officers, then in 
the country, actually tendered their services to the governor, 
against the forces of the general government. 

Such, in December, was the aspect of affairs in South Care- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. X89 

lina. Civil war had not indeed commenced, and yet all that 
seemed wanting to bring it on, was but a forcible demonstration 
from either party. At a great assembly of Nullifiers in Charles- 
ton, Mr. Preston, one of the most influential amonn- thcin, 
said, among other things equally portentous — " There are 
sixteen thousand back-countrymen with arms in their hands 
and cockades in their hats, ready to march to our city at a 
moment's warning, to defend us ; and the moment Congress 
shall pass the laws recommended to the President in relation 
to our port, I will pour down a torrent of volunteers that 
shall sweep the myrmidons of the tyrant from the soil of Caro- 
lina." There was somewhat of bombast in this lano-uao-e, but, 
unfortunately too, somewhat of truth. There were many in 
South Carolina ready and even eager for collision with the 
United States authorities. 

This state of things lasted through December, keeping the 
entire country in constant agitation. In the meantime, Mr. 
Calhoun did not make his appearance at Washington ; his 
friends said that he remained to prevent an outbreak in South 
Carolina ; his enemies that he feared to encounter the pre- 
sence of General Jackson. 

At length, the news of his departure from South Carolina, 
and of his progress towards the metropolis, reached Washing- 
ton, the latter part of December. At Raleigh, North Caro- 
lina, he passed, it was said, New Year's day, waited upon by 
largo crowds of people. A public dinner, on the part of the 
citizens, was offered to, and urged upon him, which he de- 



190 CHAPTER IX. 

clined on the ground of his public engagements. Travelling 
more slowly, than in these days of steam, his approach was 
heralded from one place to another, and preparation made for 
his reception. Everywhere he was met with respect, even in 
places where his princijDles were obnoxious and his course con- 
demned : for it was thought he was honest in his intentions. 
The story of his progress through North Carolina and Virginia 
reaching the capital before him, mitigated to a degree the 
harshness of the general feeling in that place towards him, 
and prevented any hostile demonstration, if such had been in- 
tended, against him. 

It was on the fourth day of January, 1833, he took his 
seat, for the first time, as Senator of the United States. He 
had presided, as Vice-President, over the deliberations of the 
Senate for nearly four years, but had never been otherwise a 
member of that body. 

'It was an impressive occasion. The Senate was crowded, 
to witness the ceremony of his taking the oath of office. He 
walked in, slowly and deliberately, to his seat. Some went 
up to him and tendered their congratulations ; but many of 
the Senators held back. With his State almost in open re- 
bellion, and himself, in general opinion, its most turbulent 
agitator, there were many who entertained towards him any 
but kind feelings. The idea of disunion was then a monstrous 
and unnatural idea ; it had not become familiarized, and all 
whose language, even by implication, seemed to advocate or 
tolerate that project, were held in abhorrence. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 191 

More than one Senator present, to wliom Mr. Cal- 
houn's assured but not presumptuous manner seemed like a 
bold defiance of opinion, was ready to exclaim, in the words 
of Cicero, when he addressed the audacious Cataline — 
" Quousque tandem ahiitcre Catdlina patieniidnosty-d? quam- 
diu etiam furor iste tims nos eludef ? quem ad Jinem sese 
effrenata jadahit audaciaV Certainly the presence of Mr. 
Calhoun in the Senate " abused their patience," for they held 
their seats under the Constitution, which they thought he me- 
ditated to overthrow ; and his " unbridled audacity" in thrust- 
ing himself into a body, whose action, as a co-ordinate branch 
of the government, his measures threatened to destroy, ex- 
cited their indignation. 

Still, when with reverential manner, and in a serious, sol- 
emn, and audible voice he took the oath to support the Con- 
stitution OF THE United States, opinion softened towards 
him ; and many who had foreborne to accost him earlier now 
came forward, and with great sincerity, welcomed him to the 
Senate. He took all in good part ; reciprocated the compli- 
ments he received, and concurred with others in the hope of 
harmonious legislation. 

But all who had the fear or love of Gen. Jackson before 
their eyes, hated or professed to hate the southern chieftain. 
The thunders of the White House terrified as. much in these 
days, as ever the thunders of ,ihe Vatican ; no man would en- 
counter them, unless for a purpose most safely and selfishly 
advantageous. The Jackson-men proper, were the most vio- 



192 CHAPTER IX. 

lent of the anti-Calhoim men. The Jackson press denounced 
him with less measured invective, than even his most preju- 
diced political opponents ; — and the high-way to the old 
General's heart was supposed to be abuse of Mr. Calhoun. 

But all moved him not ; neither foreign defiance, " malice 
domestic," nor executive denunciation. The certainty of an 
overwhelming opposition to his cause, the clamor of an abusive 
press, the menace even of personal outrage — none frightened 
him from his propriety of word or action. He looked and 
bore himself " every inch" a man. They who disapproved 
most his theories or his acts, could not but admire his noble 
and undaunted bearing, or refuse him honesty of intention. 
His friends would have applied the eloquent language of the 
Roman poet to his conduct. 

" Justum et tenacem propositi virum, 
Non civium ardor prava jubentium 
Non vultus instantis Tyranni 
Mente quatit soUda." 

Mr. Calhoun, still new to his seat in the Senate, entered 
upon action in relation to the affairs of his State ; a few days 
after his appearance, he introduced a resolution, calling upon 
the President for copies of his Proclamation of the 10th De- 
cember, and Governor Hayne's counter-proclamation. These 
being communicated to the Senate on the 16th of January, 
Mr. Calhoun took the floor, and attacked with no little warmth 
of language the principles of the President's proclamation. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 193 

** The cry had been raised," he said, " that the Union was in 
danger. I know of no other danger than that of military des- 
potism — I will proclaim it on this floor, that this is the 
greatest danger with which the Union is menaced — a danger 
the greatest which any country has to apprehend." 

Mr. Forsyth rose to interrupt him. He said that on a 
motion to refer (Mr. Grrundy having made a motion to that 
effect) all observations on the merits of the President's message 
were irrelevant and irregular. 

Mr. Calhoun replied that he had so stated in the outset of 
his remarks, but, in the peculiar circumstances of his situation, 
had hoped and requested for a few minutes the indulgence of 
the Senate. 

After the interchange of some explanatory remarks between 
these two gentlemen, the motion to refer was carried, and 
thereupon the Senate adjourned. 

On Monday the 21st of January, Mr. TVilkins a Senator 
from Pennsylvania, introduced from the committee on the ju- 
diciary, of which he was chairman, a bill further to provide for 
the collection of duties on imports. This was the famous 
"Force Bill." 

It seemed to partake somewhat of the character of the decree 
passed by the Senate of Rome, in political emergencies, " vi- 
dcant coiisuleSy ne quid res publica detrimenti cafiat^"* the con- 
suls should take care that the republic sustained no injury ; 
investing them with powers unknown to peaceable times. It 

empowered the President to employ the naval or land forces, 

9 



194 CHAPTER IX. 

or militia of the United States to put down any armed or 
riotous assemblage of persons resisting the custom-house offi- 
cers in the discharge of their duty, or in any manner opposing 
the execution of the revenue laws of the United States ; limit- 
ing him to no expenditure of money for the purpose, but in- 
vesting him, — the opponents of the bill contended, — with full 
and unquestionable power over the purse and sword. Mr. 
Poindexter, one of the most able as well as the most deter- 
mined enemies to the measure, declared, that if the title of 
the bill corresponded to its provisions, it might be designated 
as "A bill to repeal the Constitution of the United States, 
and to vest in the President despotic powers.'' 

Mr. Calhoun on the day succeeding, to repel the assault of 
the Executive as he considered this recommendation of the 
judiciary, brought forward in the Senate his celebrated resolu- 
tions, defining the powers of the general government, of which 
the most important was the following: " Resolved, That the 
people of the several States, thus united by the constitutional 
compact, in forming that instrument, and in creating a gene- 
ral government to carry into effect the objects for which it was 
formed, delegated to that government, for that purpose, cer- 
tain definite powers, to be exercised jointly, reserving at the 
same time, each State to itself, the residuary mass of powers, 
to be exercised by its own separate government, and that when- 
ever the general government assumes the exercise of powers 
not delegated by the compact, its acts are unauthorized, and 
are of no effect ; and that the same government is not made 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 195 

the final judge of tlie powers delegated to it, since that could 
make its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of 
its powers ; but that, as in all other cases of compact among 
sovereign parties, without any common judge, each has an 
equal right to judge for itself, as well of the infraction as of 
the mode and measure of redress." 

He introduced these resolutions with some prefatory remarks, 
in terse, condensed, emphatic language — the beautiful struc- 
ture of which, a word interpolated or withdrawn would deface 
if not destroy. The speech was not long — in duration, not 
more than half an hour ; but it produced a greater impression 
than volumes of ordinary argument. It revealed to the friends 
of the administration the character of the enemy with whom 
they would be compelled to contend ; it gave them to under- 
stand that in the conflict which was hastily approaching, there 
could be, on their part, no reserved strength ; that all was 
to be exerted, and all, but with great dexterity and energy, in 
vain. 

Mr. Grundy, the " next friend" to the President in the 
Senate, undertook the conduct of the bill through that body. 
Passing between the President and his principal adherents in 
the two Houses, he matured, in frequent consultation with 
both parties, his plan of operations. Canvassing the Senate, 
he found, among his politieal associates there, some unchange- 
ably opposed to the principles and recommendations of the 
bill. Mangum and Brown of North Carolina, Poindexter of 
Mississippi, Tyler of Virginia, Bibb of Kentucky, all able 



196 CHAPTER IX. 

debaters and hitherto most prominent of the Democratic 
party, threatened to oppose the passage of the bill, with 
all the strength of argument and skill in strategy they could 
command. Executive blandishments and executive menace 
availed naught against their purpose. They entrenched them- 
selves within their State Rights' principles, as Wellington at 
Torres Vedras. 

Nor among all not hostile to the bill was there great warmth 
of sentiment, or much promise of earnest co-operation, in its 
favor. Colonel Benton even, yielding to no one in devotion 
to the person and fortunes of the President, seemed to doubt 
the policy of dragooning a measure through the two Houses, 
upon the merits of which the party was so irrcconcileably 
divided ; an internecine war, he knew full well, would spring 
up between friends upon the issue, and rage with fiercer inten- 
sity than between hereditary or natural foes. He was at this 
time, besides, on terms of even intimacy with Mr. Calhoun, 
whose ingenuous character and transcendent ability he omitted 
no occasion to dwell upon in enthusiastic terms. He was re- 
luctant to be brought into personal conflict with one, against 
whom he had no ground of individual complaint ; but with 
whom, on the contrary, he entertained sentiments in regard to 
political action and theories, so nearly homogeneous. His vote 
was safe for the bill, but he was not prepared to take an active 
or leading part in securing its success. 

Others promised votes and all the influence, personal and 
political, they could exert in support of the measui-e ; some 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 197 

from a conviction of its necessity, and some from devotion to 
the party or to General Jackson— which they considered 
identical ideas. 

But a numerical majority barely, though assured beyond a 
doubt, was not all the administration sought. To be success- 
ful in the vote, and yet worsted in the argument, would be a 
barren victory ; a victory, more humiliating and even more 
fatal, than an honorable defeat. Before the great tribunal of 
PUBLIC OPINION, the cause was to be argued ; and upon its 
decision, and not upon the votes of complying Congressmen, 
were the merits of the question, and the honesty, and ability, 
and future destiny of the actors to be determined. From 
such decision, there was no appeal ; and the friends of the ad- 
ministration, nervously sensitive of the importance of the con- 
test, determined to spare no exertion to gain a favorable ver- 
dict. It was, in truth, to them, a life-and-death struggle. 
Not even the overwhelming popularity of General Jackson 
conld long have upholden his administration against the stun- 
ning effects of hostile opinion, on this momentous question. 

Yet there were of the Democratic party in the Senate, who 
favored the bill, some of distinguished capacity, of whom was 
Rives of Virginia, deeply versed in Constitutional law ; a 
logician of much astuteness, an earnest and fluent debater, 
and of a mind too liberal and too comprehensive, to be re- 
stricted to the contemplation solely of isolated abstractions ; 
Dallas of Pennsylvania, whom forensic training and natural 
talent admirably qualified for controversial argument ; Wilkins, 



198 CHAPTER IX. 

also of Pennsylvania, less eminent than his colleague as a 
lawyer and statesman, but of no inferior parts ; Forsyth of 
Georgia, possessing qualities of mind as extraordinary in their 
variety as their several excellence — a wit, ready and polished, 
that loved to play not wound — an imagination ardent but well 
regulated — a fancy, expressive, glowing, and chaste — a me- 
mory tenacious and reliable — and a judgment discriminating, 
profound and correct ; Grundy himself, a persuasive speaker, 
of an imposing presence and conciliatory manner, an admira- 
ble tactitian withal, that understood and could regulate the 
springs of action. 

But all the combination of such various talents, powerful as 
it was, the administration felt deeply would not avail against 
Mr. Calhoun. He was in himself equal to the whole strength 
the administration could put forth. He had all his antagonists 
had, and more ; more vigor of thought and energy of expres- 
sion, a greater variety and depth of acquisition, and more 
knowledge of the science of government ; and, above all these, 
a power of analysis and combination, which could resolve the 
most complex ideas into their original elements, and, by the 
process of generalization, from materials thus reduced to his 
will, construct one harmonious system of lofty and impregna- 
ble truths. He had in fine, genius, while the rest had but 
talent, however eminent. 

In this great crisis of the party and the country, Mr. 
Grundy felt that it was necessary to seek elsewhere than from 
his political associates. His eyes were turned where all other 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 199 

eyes were turacd. There was but one man, the friends of the 
administration felt, who could rescue the government and the 
country from the dangers that encompassed and threatened to 
overwhelm them. And he of all men was the person they had 
sought most to injure. 

From imperative engagements elsewhere, Mr. Webster had 
been but little time in the Senate during the earlier discussion 
of the bill, and had taken no part in it. His apparent indif- 
ference to its fate added to the apprehensions of the friends of 
the measure, made them still more anxious to gain his sup- 
port. Democratic members of both houses hung round his 
friends, seeking by every argument, 23romise or entreaty their 
favorable influence with him — a member of General Jackson's 
cabinet came to him at his lodgings, and earnestly besought 
him to take the lead in defence of the measure — to assume 
the controllinof management of it, and to sugo'est whatever 
amendments he deemed necessary. It was indeed full time 
for his appearance. The South Carolinian Hector was pur- 
suing his enemies to their very last entrenchments, threatening 
to involve in one common ruin the administration, the Consti- 
tution and the country, while Achilles was absent from the 
battle. 

Mr. Webster, like the hero of the Grecian epic, might have 
listened to his enemies and turned an unheeding ear to the 
supplications of his late assailants. He might have " fretted 
his great heart" in silence, safe in his haughty isolation, and 
left his enemies to perish. 



200 CHAPTER IX. 

But private griefs, nor any considerations of a private cha- 
racter ever controlled his regard for the public interest ; the 
one has been with him at all times postponed to the other. 
In the present case, he held the cause of the administration, 
the cause of the constitution, and of the country — if the for- 
mer went down on this issue, the constitution and the 
country would go down with it. He forgot, therefore, the 
contumelious treatment he had received, forgot the injuries 
done and intended him, and rallied his whole strength in sup- 
port of the persons to whom, for the time, the interests of his 
country were intrusted. 



CHAPTER X. 

Mr. "Wilkins of Pennsylvania, who introduced the bill, 
commenced the debate upon it. He opened the case for the 
government. His introductory remarks were well conceived 
and expressed, moderate in tone, and pertinent. He was not 
allowed to proceed, however, without interruption. INIessrs. 
Calhoun and Miller of South Carolina, and Poindexter of 
Mississippi, broke in upon him with interrogatories, explanations, 
and denials, continually, during the first day of his speech. 
The second day he got along with less difficulty, though not 
uninterruptedly ; Mr. Calhoun watching every word that fell 
from him, and gainsaying many. " The moment," said Mr. 
Wilkins, '' we fail to counteract the nullification proceedings of 
South Carolina, the Union is dissolved ; for, in this govern- 
ment of laws, union is obedience, and obedience is union. The 
moment South Carolina — 

Mr. Calhoun, interposing — " Who relies upon force in this 
controversy ? I have insisted upon it, that South Carolina re- 
lied altogether on civil process, and that, if the general go- 
vernment resorts to force, then only will South Carolina rely 
9# 



202 CHAPTER X. 

upon force. If force be introduced by either party, upon that 
party will fall the responsibility." 

Mr. Wilkins — " The general government will not appeal, in 
the first instance, to force. It will appeal to the patriotism of 
South Carolina — to that magnanimity of which she boasts so 
much" — 

Mr. Calhoun, with some asperity — "I am sorry that South 
Carolina cannot appeal to the sense of justice of the general 
government" — and hereupon, two or three Senators called him 
to order. So far from being considered laudable, it was holdcn 
censurable then for any Senator to speak in objurgatory terms 
of the general government. To have spoken of the advan^ 
tages of separation or secession, would have provoked for the 
offender, the indignation or contemptuous pity of the House, 
in which such sentiments were proposed. Twenty years before 
this, in 1811, when a distinguished member from Massachu- 
setts, in a debate on the bill for the admission of Louisiana, 
in the House of Representatives, used these expressions — 
" If this bill passes, the Union is virtually dissolved ; and it 
will be the right of all, and the indispensable duty of some of 
the States, to prepare definitely for a separation — amicably, 
if they can, forcibly, if they must," the Speaker, Joseph 
B. Yarnum, of Massachusetts, formerly a soldier of the Re- 
volution, decided that it was not in order to use words in de- 
bate which threatened the stability of the Union. But parlia- 
mentary manners have changed since, and members of Con- 
gress now threaten disunion, not only without attracting cen- 



DANfEL WEBSTER. 203 

sure, but even attention. The idea no less than the word 
seems to have become endurable. 

Mr. Wilkins continued and concluded his speech the second 
day, when Mr. Bibb of Kentucky, took the floor. His ap- 
pearance gave a character to his words. He retained some- 
what of the old school in his manner and dress. His words, 
too, were selected and enunciated with great particularity. 
But though formal, his manner was not cold ; nor was his lan- 
guage, though precise, without force. ^' I have witnessed," 
he said, in his exordium — " the ragings of the natural ele- 
ments, when the blackening clouds gathered. I have seen the 
forked flashes blaze upon the mountain, and yet the rock that 
decked the mountain's brow, and defied the storm, remained 
unscathed by the lightnings of heaven. I have heard the 
clamoring of the winds, and seen the proud forest bend before 
the majesty of nature. In the fury of the storm, I have seen 
the fond mother press her infant to her bosom, and sigh, with 
fearful apprehension that her husband might be exposed, house- 
less, ' to bide the peltings of the pitiless storm.' But, in the 
darkest gloom of elemental strife, there was a consolation ; for 
there was an assurance that the storm would cease ; that the 
sun would again shed his gladdening rays, on herb, tree, fruit, 
and flower, displaying the charms of nature in renovated 
health and refreshened verdure. But when, in the storm now 
gathering in the political horizon, I shall hear the blast of a 
trumpet, the neighing of the steeds, the noisy drum, the re- 
soundings of the heavy-toned, fiery-mouthed cannon j when I 



204 CHAPTER X. 

stall see tlie glittering of small arms ; wHen I shall read the 
proclamation preparatory to mortal strife between State and 
State, and know that the strife is in fact begun ' in all the 
pride, and pomp, and circumstance of war,' I shall then des- 
pair. There will be no assurance that the Constitution will 
erect its proud crest above the struggling hosts, and come out 
unscathed from the contest. I have no assurance that the 
Union will survive the carnage and embittered feelings en- 
gendered in the impious war of child against parent, brother 
against brother." This, after all, seems a kind of speech 
that occupies the debateable ground between eloquence and 
bathos ; a decided lurch either way would conclude its destiny. 
A man without ability could not use such language ; a man of 
great abilities would not. 

The whole of his first day, Mr. Bibb used for an historical 
introduction to his speech. He gave, in great detail, the pro- 
ceedings of States antecedent to the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion. The second day he devoted to a consideration of the 
powers of the general government under the Constitution ; 
and, before the close of the senatorial day, he exhausted, if 
not the subject, his audience and himself. 

He gave way about two o'clock in the afternoon to IMr. 
Poindexter, who moved an adjournment ; but the Senate re- 
fused to adjourn. Wherefore Mr. Buckner of Missouri, 
moved to postpone the further consideration of the bill, and to 
make it the special order for the next day. 

Mr. Webster rose to a point of order. The gentleman from 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 205 

Kentucky had given way, in the usual manner, to a motion to 
adjourn. Such was the practice of the Senate. But if a 
gentleman yielded the floor for any other motion, he yielded 
the right to resume it. 

Whereupon Mr. Poindexter rose, and said, with some 
warmth of manner — " It must be apparent to the Senate, 
that the question now before the Senate is one of the greatest 
importance. I have never before seen a disposition manifest- 
ed by this body to refuse to a member an opportunity for 
rest and research, in order to enable himself to close his argu- 
ment in a manner which would be satisfactory to himself and 
the country. If the Senator from Massachusetts is disposed 
to speak to the Senate for a week, I will always vote for ad- 
journment when requested." 

The Chair having decided that if a Senator yield the floor 
for any other motion than a motion to adjourn, he lost the 
rio-ht of the floor, Mr. Poindexter made another unsuccessful 
motion to adjourn. 

Thereupon Mr. Bibb rallied, and spoke with accustomed 
fluency for a few minutes, when the Senate, giving way to a 
sense of weariness, consented to adjourn. 

There are few men, of however eminent ability, who can 
command listening senates three entire days in succession, 
upon one subject. Our logomachies astound our trans-Atlan- 
tic cotemporaries, who cannot comprehend, from their own 
experience, our protracted debates. The discussion of a bill 
ia the British Parliament occasionally outlasts a day's or 



206 CHAPTER X. 

night's session ; an individual speech, never. The commence- 
ment and conclusion must be of one day ; the unities being 
as strictly observed as in the Greek drama. 

The experiment with us of long, tedious speeches is fatal to 
the ill-advised perpetrator. The attention wearies, the mind 
revolts, at such atrocious outrage against the fitness of things. 
He who talks much performs little. 

Mr. Bibb's third day speech was listened to but from cour- 
tesy. He seemed himself finally to become afi"ected by the 
atmosphere of dullness he had called around him, and hasten- 
ed to a close. His speech evinced much judgment ; and it 
was to be regretted no less for his sake than for others, that 
he had not exhibited more and spoken less. 

Mr. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey appropriated all the rem- 
nant that was left of Mr. Bibb's third day, and a portion of 
the day following. His argument was respectable, not bril- 
liant. " We rely," said he, " upon the peaceful energies of 
our institutions ; Europe, on the thunder of her cannon and 
the clangor of her arms. Poor Holland is about to pay 
dearly for this balance of power. For two hundred years it 
has deluged Europe with blood. Here we have it in a peace- 
ful tribunal, by which the tranquillity of the country and the 
safety of our institutions may be preserved for years to come. 
Just and certain retribution will come upon those who destroy 
this peaceful arbiter, and set up the sword in its stead. Here 
is the system, sir, as I understand it, as I honor it, and as I, 
with my latest breath, will maintain it. I regard this system 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 207 

as by far the greatest political blessing ever given by Provi- 
dence to any people. To it I trace all our happiness and pros- 
perity. In this day of our highest prosperity, when our foun- 
tains are all full, and our streams running over, do not let a 
sister State rashly overturn the institutions which are the 
sources of our happiness. How painful is the crisis which 
seeks disunion, and which would split us up into disgraced and 
bleeding fragments. This nullification, if it prevail, will yet 
meet a tremendous retribution, in the execrations of all future 
times." This is all proper, decent, and senatorial ; it is also 
just to the character of its author, w^ho gained as much in- 
fluence in the Senate from his estimable moral qualities, as 
from his intellectual endowments. 

Mr. Brown of North Carolina, followed Mr. Frelinghuysen, 
and took his stand, he said, on the reserved rights of States. 
" I repudiate the doctiue of nullification. I repudiate also the 
high-toned doctrine of the Federal party. I believe it is to 
that hio-h-toned doctrine that we are to attribute nullification." 
He contended that it was by an improper pressure of the 
federal government on the rights of the States, and by its 
exercise of doubtful powers, that South Carolina had been 
compelled to take the defiant position she had assumed ; 
which, if not justifiable, was susceptible of great palliation. 
" Proud as I am" — he said in conclusion — " of the achieve- 
ments which have been performed under the star-spangled 
banner ; proud as I am of the stars and stripes which have 
fluttered in every sea and every clime j anxious as I am for 



208 CHAPTER X. 

the glory of the country ; yet God forbid that these stars and 
stripes, which have been heretofore the rallying point of hero- 
ism, should now float over the mangled corses of our bleeding 
countrymen. God forbid that our country should undergo 
this sad and disastrous revolution ; for he believed, whenever 
that should take place, not only the liberties of this country, 
but the best and brightest hopes of the civilized world, would 
be destroyed for ever." 

Mr. Holmes, of Maine, then took the floor. Mr. Holmes 
would have been considered well qualified for the Senate, had 
he never been Senator ; but what he gained in position, he lost 
in reputation. His bearing, manner, and speech, all wanted 
dignity. His wit, of which he had no inconsiderable portion, 
was coarse, and even vulgar ; and his manner too often de- 
generated into buffoonery. But he had quickness of parts, 
and, what does not always accompany them, a retentive 
memory. If he did not originate much, he easily apprehended 
the merit of another's speech, and, from recollection and 
power of combination, was able to fashion one of his own. He 
was good, too, at repartee, and made himself formidable to 
those who feared his ridicule. 

There was little he said in the course of his speech on this 
occasion worthy to be translated. As an example of his ar- 
gumentative manner, the following passage may be given : 
" This is a Constitutional Government, and, therefore, it is 
sovereign as far as to all powers delegated to it. This is the 
general understanding of the people ; and the idea of nullifi- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 20^ 

cation and reserved rights is almost everywhere ridiculed by 
them. I saw a story in a Tennessee newspaper which I ^*ill 
relate, as apposite. A law of that State respecting marriage 
required the publication of the banns some time previous to 
marriage. The time appeared too long to one individual, and 
he determined to oppose the law and set himself down on his 
reserved rights. The law did not prohibit marriage, which 
would be flatly unconstitutional, but it delayed it, and was 
therefore injurious. He accordingly nullified the law." 

The great merit of Mr. Holmes' argument on this occasion 
was its brevity ; some of the other speeches wanted even that. 

Mr. Tyler followed Mr. Holmes, on the opposite side of the 
question. " The pernicious doctrine," said he, " that this is 
a National and not a Federal Government, has received coun- 
tenance from the late proclamation and message of the Presi- 
dent. The People are regarded as one mass, and the States 
as constituting one nation. I desire to know when this 
chemical process occurred ? When were the States welded 
too-ether in one mass ? Was it before or since the Revolution ? 
At what time was Virginia fused into an integral mass with 

the other States ? » 

^ ^ m * * * * 

This amalgamating doctrine is followed out into most sin- 
gular consequences. Sir, it is said that I do not represent on 
this floor the State of Virginia, but the United States. Strange 
hallucination ! This I must consider as vital in its conse- 
quences. It brings into question the great right of instructions ; 



210 CHAPTER X. 

for if it be true, the State of Delaware has as full and absolute 
control over my actions as the State of Virginia. No, sir, I 
repudiate this doctrine ; I owe no responsibility, politically 
speaking, elsewhere than to my State. And if any Senator 
from that State should dare oppose her instructions, I might 
say, with perfect confidence, to quote the remarks of one of 
her most gifted sons, that '^ if he would not be instructed in 
his seat, he would very soon be instructed out of it." The 
doctrine is founded in a gross misconception of the nature and 
character of our institutions." 

This speech reflects the style and character of Mr. Tyler — 
the defects and merits alike of both. Occasionally, there will 
be found a fitful energy of expression and purpose, but close 
beside, an obscurity of phrase, and a seeming hesitation, that 
throw an air of insincerity upon the sentiments uttered. Great 
fluency of speech, to the frequent detriment of ideas — an over- 
flowing of historical illustration, to the partial submersion of 
the subject-matter — foi'getfulncss of general interests in the 
intense contemplation of personal objects — arguments often 
without conclusion, and conduct often without motive — such 
seem to have been the distino-uishins; characteristics of Mr. 
Tyler's speech and public life. 

His argument and course, on this eventful occasion, neither 
great in themselves, were the causes of great results. They 
revealed a half-formed inclination to secede from the embodied 
idea of Democracy ; an inclination that grew into a purpose, 
and thence into action, within a brief period, to such a devel- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 211 

opement, tbat the Whigs, a few years after, used his name as 
leaven, to produce fermentation among the State Rights' con- 
stituency of the South. The fermentation ensued, and the 
Whigs gained their less than Phyrrus-victory* of 1840. 

" I would," said Mr. Tyler, in his peroration, " that I had 
but moral influence enough to save my country in this hour of 
peril. If I know myself, I would peril all, everything that I 
bold most dear, if I could be the means of stilling the agitated 
billows. I have no such power ; I stand here, manacled in a 
minority, whose efforts can avail but little. You, who arc the 
majority, have the destinies of the country in your hand. If 
war shall grow out of this measure, you alone are responsible. 
I will wash my hands of the business. Rather than give my 
aid, I would surrender my station here, for I aspire not to 
imitate the rash boy who sat fire to the Ephesian dome. No, 
sir, I will lend no aid to the passage of this bill. I had almost 
said that ' I had rather be a dog and bay the moon than such 
a Roman.' I will not yet despair. Rome had her Curtius ; 
Sparta her Leonidas ; and Athens her band of devoted pa- 
ti-iots ; — and shall it be said that the American Senate contains 
not one man who will step forward to rescue his country in 
this her moment of peril ? Although that man may never 
wear an earthly crown, or sway an earthly sceptre, eternal fame 
shall wreathe an evergreen around his brow, and his name 

* '' Another such victory, and we are ruined," Phyrrus said, of his 
triumph over the Romans. 



212 CHAPTER X. 

shall rank witli those of the proudest patriots of the proudesl 
climes." 

Mr. Tyler makes a liberal use of Plutarch in his speech. 
There are, indeed, more Greeks and Romans in it than 
Americans. It is a fault (or virtue) common to his State.* 

Mr. Clayton followed, and ably refuted, Mr. Tyler. In 
answer to Mr. Tyler's declaration that he was a Senator of 
Virginia, and not of the United States, Mr. Clayton said : 
" Sir, were it not for sheer compassion towards some of those 
gentlemen, who indulge us so often with extravagant declama- 
tion about State power and State supremacy, it would be well 
to ring the truth daily in their ears, until they are cured of 
these diseased imaginations, that neither the " Old Dominion," 
nor even the " Empire State" herself, could singly, and suc- 

* Gen. Harrison was a native of Virginia and received his education 
there. To his last day, he never recovered from Plutarch. His Inau- 
gural Message proves the duration of his attachment. Plutarch's heroes 
would have appeared therein in still greater number, but for an untimely 
fate that kept them out. 

It was said at the time, that the morning before the Message was de- 
livered, the Secretary of State elect was met, by a friend, walking in the 
vicinity of the White House, in no little apparent perturbation. " What 
is the matter with you, this morning, JVIr. Webster ?" inquired his friend ; 
" you seem agitated." " Agitated, sir ! and who would not feel agitated, 
that had committed the murder I have this morning ?" " Murder ! Mr. 
Webster?" "Aye, sir, murder; murder, wdth malice aforethought, of 
I know not hoiv many Greeks and Romans. ^^ 

There is no authority, however, but rumor for this story. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 213 

cessfully, measure strength with one of the second-rate powers 
of Europe. The gentleman from Virginia, who has filled his 
present station with so much honor to himself and usefulness 
to his country, denies that he is a Senator of the United States, 
and asserts that he is only a Senator of Virginia. He denies 
the very existence of such a character as that of a Senator of 
the United States. Each member here, in his view, is bound 
to legislate for his own State, and can represent no other. 
But where is the clause in the Constitution which recognizes a 
Senator of Virginia, of Delaware, or of any other single State, 
in this hall ? This is not the Senate of Virginia, but of the 
United States. The honorable member says he acts here only 
in obedience to the wishes of Virginia ; that he yields obedience 
to this Grovernment only because Virginia wills it. The Con- 
stitution and laws of the United States have no binding force 
with him from any other cause than this, that Virginia com- 
mands him to obey them. The result of all this doctrine is, 
that whenever Virginia wills it, he will violate this Constitution, 
and set these laws at defiance. In opj^osition to all this, hear 
the creed of a national republican : I obey this Constitution, 
and act as Senator of the United States under it, because I 
have sworn to support that Constitution. I hold myself bound, 
while acting in my station here, to legislate for the benefit of 
the whole country, not merely for that of any section of it ; 
and, in the discharge of my duty, I will look abroad throughout 
this wide Republic, never sacrificing the interests of any one 
part of it merely to gratify another, but always dealing out 



214 CHAPTER X. 

and distributing equal justice to all my countrymen, wherever 
they may be located, or by whatever title they may be distin- 
guished from each other." 

The eloquent patriotism of these and kindred remarks 
gained Mr. Clayton deserved consideration, among all parties. 
The liberality of his views was no greater, in the meantime, 
than the force of his argument. Oftentimes, during his speech, 
he was interrupted by Mr. Calhoun, who sought to obviate the 
effect of his logic, by the interposition of ingenious objections. 

On Mr. Clayton's conclusion, Mr. Mangum obtained the 
floor, and moved to postpone the farther consideration of the 
bill till the next day. He wished to speak upon the bill, but 
was too unwell this day. 

The Senate, however, did not wish to postpone the discus- 
sion of the bill. The majority thought its immediate passage 
necessary. The threatening attitude of South Carolina was to 
be met by an immediate preparation on the part of the gene- 
ral government, for all emergencies. The President's particu- 
lar friends in the Senate urged action. Forsyth, Grrundy, and 
Wilkins contended that the debate should go on. Mr. Cal- 
houn said that the Senator from North Carolina was the only 
member of the Committee on the Judiciary who had objected 
to the bill. He would appeal to the Senate, therefore, whe- 
ther, on the score of justice, the gentleman was not entitled 
to such indulgence as he might require to enable him to give a 
satisfactory exposition of the reasons by which he was actuated, 
the more especially as he appeared so unwell. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 215 

Mr. Wilkins replied that he would be the last man to force 
the gentleman from North Carolina, for whom he had a great 
respect, into the discussion without mature preparation. But 
he thought the gentleman was fully prepared to debate the 
question at this time. 

Mr. Calhoun said that the Senator from Pennsylvania could 
not have heard the Senator from North Carolina ask the post- 
ponement on account of his indisposition. 

Mr. King, of Alabama, made the same suggestion ; but Mr. 
"Wilkins replied to neither. 

Mr. AVilkins, in truth, displayed great eagerness to get the 
bill through ; and some said at the time, from interested 
motives. " He votes for this great measure," said a Senator 
in this debate, " because it confers power on one, ' who never 
abused power,' He goes for the man, and sustains the prin- 
ciple for the sake of the man." He afterwards went for the 
mission to Russia, and got it ; as the opponents of this bill 
contended, for his ready services on this occasion. But de- 
traction is as inseparable from distinguished merit, as the 
shadow from the substance. 

The intellectual sparring continued, and afforded relief to 
the graver discussion of the bill. Mr. Webster said there 
was no occasion for postponement. The bill could make pro- 
gress, and the gentleman from North Carolina could be heard 
on any other day as well as this. But few days remained of 
the session, and if the bill was to be definitely acted upon, it 
could only be done by a determination to sit out the discus- 



216 CHAPTER X. 

sion. The Senate should sit till late in the evening, for at 
the rate of a speech a day, the bill would never be got through. 

Mr. Calhoun replied, that if any other Senator, on either 
Bide of the house, was ready to go on with the debate, he 
Would make no objection to sit out the day. But he thought 
the gentleman from North Carolina was, in justice, entitled to 
the indulgence of the Senate. 

Mr. King said, that if the gentleman from Massachusetts 
wished to deliver his sentiments on the bill, he hoped the 
motion would be withdrawn for that purpose, and he would be 
happy to listen to the gentleman to as great length as he might 
desire. 

Mr. Webster — " The gentleman from Alabama is ex- 
tremely kind ; and his kindness is justly appreciated. The 
gentleman from Massachusetts fully understands the gentle- 
man from Alabama ; but he has no disposition to address the 
Senate at present, nor, under existing circumstances, at any 
other time, on the subject of this bill." 

The argument, thus far, Mr. Webster thought pre- 
ponderated in favor of the bill. His aid, therefore, was not 
called for ; and he reserved it till it should be needed. But 
the friends of the President, in the Senate, who watched every 
word and movement of friend and foe, were alarmed, fearing 
lukewarmness on his part ; and some left their seats, and 
crossed over to consult with him. 

The motion to postpone was lost ; and Mr. Mangum took 
the floor on the bill. But after proceeding for fifteen minutes, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 217 

or thereabouts, he yielded the floor to Mr. Poindexter, who 
moved that the Senate adjourn, as the gentleman from 
North Carolina was evidently too much indisposed to proceed. 
The Senate, however, refused to adjourn, and Mr. Mangum 
resumed his argument. 

He drew a parallel between the course pursued by the 
British Grovernment previous to the war of the Revolution, and 
that which was now pursued by the General Government 
against South Carolina ; a parallel, however, that like parallel 
lines, might run on forever without meeting. After continuing 
in this strain for some time, Mr. Mangum again gave way to 
Mr. Sprague, of Maine, who moved an adjournment, which 
was lost by one vote. 

Mr. Mangum recommenced his argument, and continued it 
till 4 o'clock, when Mr. Tyler, premising that the Senate had 
by this time sufficiently indicated its intention to sit till a late 
hour every afternoon, for the purpose of bringing the debate 
to a close, moved that the Senate adjourn. 

Mr. Webster would not oppose the motion, but rose to give 
notice that, for one, he should vote hereafter against any mo- 
tion to adjourn before six o'clock, till the bill was disposed of. 

The main action of the drama was relieved by occasional 

episodes, as in the Grecian Epic, where, while the armies 

pause, valiant spirits on either side get up a single combat. 

Of such nature was the passage-at-arms between Grundy of 

Tennessee, and Poindexter of Mississippi, upon the subject of 

the military orders of the President. The most intense cu- 

10 



218 CHAPTER X. 

riosity and deepest silence prevailed in relation to the Presi- 
dent's intentions of a forcible demonstration against South 
Carolina. It was currently reported that the General had 
ordered a portion of the fleet to occupy Charleston harbor, and 
had given instructions of a belligerent character to the com- 
mander of the military forces at and near Charleston. Poin- 
dexter, who affected to assume a certain kind of leadership in 
the debate against the bill, introduced a resolution, calling 
upon the President for information of his action or intentions. 
He had been an early Jackson-man, but had ratted^ since his 
election to the Senate, He never was constant to a man or 
principle long. He embraced a friendship or measure with 
vehemence and gave them up with precipitancy. He hated 
cordially, and enjoyed the faculty, to a greater extent than 
almost any other man, of inspiring cordial hatred. All he 
aimed at seemed to be notoriety ; or, if he sought it not, it 
came to him, gratuitously. 

Partly to indulge this passion, and partly to exasperate 
Gen. Jackson — between whom and himself there raged a per- 
sonal warfare, helium plusquam civile, as Lucan has it — he 
threw this resolution into the Senate, and provoked a discus- 
sion with Mr. Grundy, against whom, as the nearest friend of 
the President, his remarks were mostly directed. 

He said, that when the day before he introduced the resolu- 
tion, he thought he had placed the gentleman from Tennessee 
in an awkward predicament, and now he was sure of it. The 
gentleman and his friends, after having consulted their pillows, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 219 

had come to the Senate with a determination to destroy his 
resolution, if in their power to do so. He was sorry to see 
this opposition to his motion ; it seemed to be indicative of a 
disposition to shroud in secrecy the movements of the Execu- 
tive authority. " Sir," said he, " there was a drawing-room 
last night, and great anxiety was manifested on the part of 
some gentlemen, to get the ear of the President." 

Mr. Grundy did not pretend to understand what the gentle- 
man from Mississippi meant by his allusion to the drawing- 
room. He could approach the President as one of his consti- 
tutional advisers, and was not obliged to take advantage of the 
social character of the drawing-room, to reach his ear. 

In regard to the information the Senator from Mississippi 
sought, he would suppose some most respectable citizens of 
South Carolina had communicated intelligence to the Execu- 
tive, upon which secret orders had been issued ; does the 
Senator ask the names of these citizens, and all the circum- 
stances of their disclosures ? 

"All, all !" said Mr. Poindexter ; " the whole of them." 
" But would not such disclosure," asked Mr. Grrundy, " lead 
to the immediate shedding of blood ?" .^ 

" I care not if it does," replied Mr. Poindexter. " Let us 
have the information, no matter what are the consequences." 
But Mr. G-rundy was not disposed to gratify the truculent 
curiosity of the Senator from Mississippi, and after some good- 
natured bantering on his part, and the expression of some more 
indignation on the part of the Mississippian, the discussion was 



220 CHAPTER X. 

cut short by the action of the Senate, in taking up the special 
order of the day. 

Of the nature of an episode, too, was the scene that occurred 
when Mr. Webster undertook to prove that the bill and the 
message of the President contained the same identical recom' 
mendations ; and that, consequently, anathemas instead of 
being confined to the first, should be directed equally against 
the latter. 

A warm controversy had risen on the measure, he said, 
and it was but proper to understand between what parties it 
existed. 

Soon after the declaration of war by the United States 
against England, an American vessel fell in at sea with one of 
England, and gave information of the declaration. The En- 
glish master inquired, with no little warmth of manner and 
expression, why the United States had gone to war with En- 
gland ? The American answered him, that difiiculties had 
existed, for a good while, between the two Grovernments, and 
that it was at length thought, in America, to be high time for 
the parties to come to a better understanding. 

" I incline to think, Mr. President," continued Mr. Web- 
ster, " that a war has broken out here, which is very likely, 
before it closes, to bring the parties to a better understanding. 
* *^ * Now, sir, let it be known, once for all, that this is 
an Administration measure ; that it is the President's own 
measure ; and I pray gentlemen to have the goodness, if they 
call it hard names, and talk boldly against its friends, not to 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 221 

overlook its source. Let them attack it, if they choose to at- 
tack it, in its origin." 

Messrs. Tyler, Bibb, and Brown, of North Carolina, an- 
swered with some heat — the latter particularly — the sugges- 
tion that they hesitated to denounce the message, from fear of 
its author. Mr. Tyler said it was not the first time he had 
been placed in opposition to measures of which the President 
was the source, or of which the President approved. If the 
President has sent a Botany Bill, he would call it so, and as 
such oppose it. Mr. Bibb said, if the President desired that 
any such power should be given him, as the bill before them 
gave, he could find no expression of such desire in the mes- 
sage. He could not imagine that any President would have 
the daring effrontery to ask of Congress to give him such 
powers. Mr. Brown said, he had never looked to any quarter 
for instructions in regard to his vote on this bill, neither to 
the President nor Judiciary Committee — and he should not. 

These interludes — if thus they may be called — added much 
to the interest of the main piece. They gave time, too, to 
the actors in the drama to better prepare their parts, to study 
their speeches, arrange their dresses, and — a thing not unat- 
tended to even by Senators — prepare good houses. For 
Senators, no more than professional actors, love not to appear 
to "empty boxes." 

"When the curtain again rose, in the regular piece, Mr. 
Dallas, of Pennsylvania, appeared, and spoke his speech 
" trippingly on the tongue." His personal appearance aided 



222 CHAPTER X. 

him no little. It was, punctually, that of a gentleman. His 
rubicund countenance, surmounted by hair white as the snow- 
flakes, bleached, but not thinned ; his elaborate and improving 
manner, self-respecting yet not presumptuous ; his scrupulous 
dress, subdued voice, and harmonious gesture, all bespoke the 
man of cultivated intellect and habits ; and, in an assembly 
like the Senate of those days, could not fail to produce an 
earnest impression. 

His language was consonant with his manner and bearing ; 
it illustrated both. "Let us," said he, "inquire into the 
nature of our political structure. What is this political be- 
ing — the Union, commonly styled * the United States ?' A 
consolidated multitude ? Certainly not a federation merely of 
totally distinct masses of people ? Certainly not. It is some- 
thing then of a complicated character between these two, or 
combining them both. To be justly appreciated, it must be 
well understood, and not flimsily considered. Generalization 
and vague abstractions delude us, and necessarily lead to false 
conclusions. No one denies or doubts that the Constitution 
was formed by the people of the United States ; and no one 
denies or doubts that it acts directly upon the people. Its 
origin and action are therefore popular or national. But was 
it not formed by the people as distinct aggregates called States 
in their sovereign capacities ? Clearly it was. And is it not 
carried on, through some of its essential processes, by the 
separate States as sovereigns ? Clearly it is. Its origin and 
action are then federative. Thus it is both popular and fede- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 223 

rativG ; or, in other words, it is an entire national government, 
of which both the union and the distinctiveness of the sove- 
reign States are fundamental and inherent qualities." 

Mr. Miller, of South Carolina, followed Mr. Dallas, in a 
speech of some power, against the bill ; and Mr. Rives, of 
Virginia, followed Mr. Miller, in favor of the bill. It was 
Mr. Rives maiden speech, and a Ygry creditable effort. He 
came out from the shadowy, spectra^l^ion of abstractions, 
where no life is visible, into the world of sense and action. 
There was a meaning and warmth in his language that gained 
sympathy and response in the breasts, no less than in the un- 
derstandings, of his hearers. He nationalized Virginia, giving 
it more than " a local habitation and a name." 

It was late in the evening of the fourteenth day of Feb- 
ruary, that Mr. Rives concluded his speech. On his resuming 
his seat, Mr. Calhoun said he had waited to see if any other 
member of the committee desired to speak on the bill. Wish- 
inor to be heard himself on its merits, he would move that the 
Senate adjourn — and the Senate adjourned. 



/ 



CHAPTER XI 



It was on the fifteenth day of February, 1833, that Mr. 
Calhoun addressed the Senate against the Force Bill. All 
were silent as he rose, and, intent upon every word he uttered, 
directed their eyes and cars towards him. There was no one 
in the country at the time whose every act was watched with 
so much care. He was, indeed, an object of fearful curiosity. 
What he meditated was unknown in those days, and may 
never be revealed. But the current and specious voice at- 
tributed to him no less than treason against the government, 
It was known he was ambitious ; and, in the pursuit of his 
ambitious projects, it was believed he was unscrupulous. 
" What thou would'st highly, that would'st thou holily," was 
the confession by Lady ^Macbeth of her husband's character. 
But oninion at this time conceded no such doubtful com- 
pliment to Mr Calhoun. It was generally credited that 
no consideration of private or public morality, no restriction of 
personal or constitutional obligation, no recollections of the 
past, or fears of the future could control his mad ambition. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 225 

Prejudice amounted to a passion against him. The invectives 
hurled against him by Greneral Jackson, and the accusations 
which followed them, in every multiplied form, rendered him 
an object of equal apprehension and hatred. He was denomi- 
nated a Catiline by the organ of the administration, and by 
the people generally was feared as such. 

The vulgar are disposed to confound moral with per- 
sonal attributes ; to judge of character or intention from 
physical developments ; to believe what see?ns must be the 
logical and inevitable cause of what is. It is a conclusion, 
however, not confined to the vulgar, the illiterate, the unin- 
formed — but shared, in a degree at least, by intelligent and 
observant men. Mr. Calhoun's appearance had answered well 
the preconceived idea of a conspirator. Tall, gaunt, and of a 
somewhat stoop in figure, with a brow full, well formed, but 
receding ; hair, not reposing on the head, but starting from it 
like the Grorgon's ; a countenance, expressive of unqualified 
intellect, the lines of which seemed deeply gullied by intense 
thought ; an eye that watched everything and revealed 
nothing, ever inquisitive, restless, and penetrating ; and a 
manner emphatic, yet restrained, determined but cautious ; 
persons who knew not his antecedents nor his actual position, 
would have pointed him out as one that might meditate great 
and dangerous pursuits. To an audience, already embittered, 
he seemed to realize the full idea of a conspirator. 

Yet the purity of his private life, his high integrity, and 

scorn of meanness in man or thing, gained him a warmth of 
9# 



226 CHAPTER XI. 

personal regard that nearly overrode the indignation felt for 
his contemplated or suspected plans. Opinion, at times, hesi- 
tated between hatred and admiration ; a turbulent condition 
of the mind not suited to a dispassionate view of the object of 
its contemplation, but calculated, nevertheless, to increase the 
interest and anxiety felt for it. 

The isolation and even danger of his position were not in- 
jurious to the influence of his eloquence. Those who hated 
him most, and could feel no sympathy in his cause, yet 
pardoned those who felt. A great man struggling with adver- 
sity, was a spectacle the gods loved to contemplate, and which 
painters of every age have been always eager to express. 
There is in it so much of moral sublimity, so much of soul- 
subduing grandeur, so much of more than mere mortal mag- 
nanimity, that the heart is carried away, as by a kind of 
surprise. Our sympathies are too strong for our convictions. 

Mr. Calhoun rose and addressed the Senate. " Mr. Presi- 
dent, I know not which is most objectionable, the provisions of 
this bill, or the temper in which its adoption has been urged. 
If the extraordinary powers with which the bill proposes to 
clothe the Executive, to the utter prostration of the Constitu- 
tion and the rights of the States, be calculated to impress our 
minds with alarm at the rapid progress of despotism in our 
country, the zeal with which every circumstance calculated 
to misrepresent or exaggerate the conduct of Carolina in the 
controversy is seized on, with a view to excite hostility against 
her, but too plainly indicates the deep decay of that brotherly 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 227 

feeling which once existed between these States, and to which 
we are indebted for our beautiful federal system." 

A more ingenious, yet seemingly less studied exordium will 
scarcely be found recorded in parliamentary annals. The 
orator, in simple but artful words, transposes entirely the re- 
lations of parties ; and, with an assurance that an auditor 
would not dare to suppose aught but conscious innocence 
could command, demands sympathy for himself and CaroHna, 
as suffering wrong. The earnest manner of the speaker, the 
sincerity of his countenance and his voice, and his well-known 
candor avoided the suspicion of intended imposition on his 
part. It was evident to all that he sought to produce belief 
from what himself believed. He could not change facts, but 
he could interpret them. He was not an impostor but 
fanatic. 

His whole argument assumes the innocence of South Caro- 
lina. Nothing could be more erroneous, he said, than that 
South Carolina claimed the right to violate any provision of 
the Constitution. Her object was not to resist laws made in 
pursuance of the Constitution, but those made without its 
authority, and which encroach on her reserved powers. She 
did not claim even the right of judging of the delegated 
powers, but of those that were reserved ; and to resist the 
former when they encroach upon the latter. 

He illustrated his position with infinite ability, and with 
great beauty of language. In truth, the curious felicity of 
tis diction threw such a dazzling lustre upon his sentiments 



228 CHAPTER XI, 

as to conceal their real character. Forms of beanty gained 
the senses, to the exclusion of sober reflection ; just as the 
appearance of Helen, in her immortal loveliness, overcame the 
matured convictions of Priam's counsellors. 

In an earlier part of this book, some allusion was made to 
Mr. Calhoun's warm advocacy of the protective Tariff of 1816, 
and of the speech he made on the passage of that measure. 
It is but fair to admit his explanation of his conduct on that 
occasion, as expressed in his speech at this time. His speech 
then, he said, was an impromptu. It was delivered at the 
request of a friend, when he had not previously the least in- 
tention of addressing the House. " He came to me," said Mr. 
Calhoun, " when I was sitting at my desk writing, and said 
that the House was falling into some confusion, accompanying 
it with a remark that I knew how difficult it was to rally so 
large a body when once broken on a tax-bill, as had been ex- 
perienced during the late war. Having a higher opinion of 
my influence than it deserved, he requested me to say some- 
thing to prevent the confusion. I replied that I was at a loss 
what to say ; that I had been busily engaged on the currency, 
which was then in great confusion, and which, as I stated, had 
been particularly under my charge, as chairman. He repeated 
his request, and the speech which the Senator from Pennsyl- 
vania, Mr. Dallas, has complimented so highly was the result." 
The bill of 1816 being a revenue bill was, of cours?, con- 
stitutional ; in urging it, did he commit himself to that system 
of oppression since grown up, and which has for its object the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 229 

enriching of one portion of the country at the expense of the 

other ? 

Mr. Calhoun contended that it was as a friend to the re- 
served powers of the States, Gen. Jackson was so warmly 
supported at the South in the canvass of 1828. His election 
was hailed as their security. But the very event on which 
they had built their hopes had been turned against them ; and 
the very person to whom they had looked as a deliverer, and 
whom, under that impression, South Carolina had striven for 
so many years to elevate to power, had become the most 
powerful instrument in the hands of his and their bitterest op- 
ponents, to put down them and their cause. 

" Scarcely had he been elected," said Mr. Calhoun, " when 
it became apparent, from the organization of his Cabinet, and 
other indications, that all our hopes of relief through him were 
blasted. The admission of a single individual into the Cabinet^ 
under the circumstances which accompanied the admission, 
threw all into confusion. The mischievous influence over the 
President through which this individual was admitted into the 
Cabinet, soon became apparent. Instead of turning his eyes 
forward to the period of the payment of the public debt, which 
was then near at hand, and to the present dangerous political 
crisis, which was inevitable, unless averted by a timely and 
wise system of measures, the attention of the President was 
absorbed by mere party arrangements, and circumstances too 
disreputable to be mentioned here, except by the most distant 
allusion." 



230 CHAPTER XI. 

Few persons, among our public men, have been so careful 
to avoid personalities in debate as Mr. Calhoun. Notwith- 
standing the wrongs, fancied or real, he had suffered, or sup- 
posed himself to have suffered, from Mr. Van Buren, I recollect 
now no other occasion in which he made, in public debate, 
any hostile allusion to that gentleman, or indulged, indeed, in 
language of abuse towards any personal or political adversary. 
This, in a country and age w^hcre personal criminations and 
recriminations, if not defended on principle, are tolerated and 
even encouraged by general practice, is no ordinary praise. 

Of the accusation against him in the President's Proclama- 
tion, that he had been governed in his late course by feelings 
of disappointed ambition, he spoke in terms more of sorrow 
than anger. It ill became the Chief Magistrate, he said, to 
make such a charge. ' His whole career refuted it. The doc- 
trine which he now sustained he had advocated from the 
passage of the Act of 1828, " the bill of abominations." When 
that bill came from the other House to the Senate, the almost 
universal impression was, that its fate would depend upon his 
casting vote. It was known, as the bill then stood, that the 
Senate was nearly equally divided ; and as it was a combined 
measure, originating with the politicians and manufticturers, 
and intended as much to bear upon the Presidential election 
as to protect manufacturers, it was believed that, as a stroke 
of political policy, its fate would be made to depend upon his 
vote, in order to defeat Gren. Jackson's election as well as his 
own. The friends of Gen. Jackson were alarmed, and he 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 231 

(Mr. Callioun) was earnestly entreated to leave the chair, in 
order to avoid the responsibility, under the plausible argument, 
that if the Senate should be equally divided, the bill would be 
lost without the aid of his casting vote. The reply to this 
entreaty was, that no consideration, personal to himself, could 
induce him to take such a course ; that he considered the 
measure as of the most dangerous character, calculated to 
produce the most fearful crisis ; that the payment of the public 
debt was just at hand, and that the great increase of revenue 
which it would pour into the treasury would accelerate the 
approach of that period ; and that the country would be placed 
in the most trying of all situations, with an immense revenue, 
without the means of absorption upon any legitimate or con- 
stitutional object of appropriation, and would be compelled to 
submit to all the corrupting consequences of a large surplus, 
or to make a sudden reduction of the rates of duties, which 
would prove ruinous to the very interests which were then 
forcing the passage of the bill. Under these views he deter- 
mined to remain in the chair, and, if the bill came to him, to 
give his casting vote against it, and, in so doing, to give his 
reasons at large ; but, at the same time, he informed his 
friends that he would retire from the ticket, so that the elec- 
tion of Gen. Jackson might not be embarrassed by any act of 
his. " Sir," said Mr. Calhoun, ^' I was amazed at the folly 
and infatuation of that period. So completely was Congress 
absorbed in the game of ambition and avarice, from the double 
impulse of the manufacturers and politicans, that none but a 



232 CHAPTER XI. 

few appeared to anticipate the present crisis at which now all 
are alarmed, but which is the ineTitable result of what was 
then done." As to himself, he had clearly foreseen what had 
since followed. The road of ambition lay open before him ; 
he had but to follow the corrupt tendency of the times, but he 
had chosen to tread the rugged path of duty. 

The character of this extraordinary man has been the theme 
alike of extravagant praise and obloquy, as zealous friendship 
or earnest enmity have held the pen. His sun has lately sunk 
below the horizon ; it went down in all the splendor of noon- 
tide, and the effulgence of its setting yet dazzles the mind too 
much, to justify an impartial opinion. But whatever may be 
the diversity of opinion as regards his patriotism, or the integ- 
rity of his purpose, no one who respects himself will deny him 
the possession of rare intellectual faculties ; of a mind capa- 
cious and enlightened ; of powers of reasoning almost miracu- 
lous ; of unequalled prescience ; and of a judgment, when 
unwarped by prejudice, most express and admirable. 

On this, the greatest occasion of his intellectual and political 
life, he bore himself proudly and gloriously. He appeared to 
hold victory at his command, and yet determined, withal, to 
show that he deserved it. There was a strength in his argu- 
ment that seemed the exhaustion of thought, and a frequency 
of nervous diction most appropriate for its expression. The 
extreme mobility of his mind was felt everywhere and imme- 
diate. It passed from declamation to invective, and from in- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 233 

vective to argument, rapidly, but not confusedly, exciting and 
fillino; the imao-ination of all. 

In his tempestuous eloquence, he tore to pieces the argu- 
ments of his opponents, as the hurricane rends the sails. 
Nothing withstood the ardor of his mind ; no sophistry, how- 
ever ingenious, puzzled him ; no rhetorical ruse escaped his 
detection. He overthrew logic that seemed impregnable, and 
demolished the most compact theory, in a breath. 

No little portion of the speech was directed to the conside- 
ration of the philosophy of government, and the history of 
free institutions, — subjects which the orator had studied to 
complete maStery, and was amply capable to illustrate. He 
defended himself against the charge of " metaphysical rea- 
soning." As he understood the proper use of the term, it 
meant the power of analysis and combination. "It is the 
power," he said, " which raises man above the brute ; which 
distinguishes his faculties from mere sagacity, which he holds 
in common with inferior animals. It is this power which has 
raised the astronomer from being a mere gazer at the stars to 
the high, intellectual eminence of a Newton or La Place, and 
astronomy itself, from a mere observation of insulated facts, 
into that noble science which dis23lays to our admiration the 
system of the Universe. And shall this high power of the 
mind, which has effected such wonders when directed to the 
laws which control the material world, be forever prohibited, 
imder a senseless cry of metaphysics, from being applied to 
the mighty purpose of political science and legislation ? I 



234 CHAPTER XI. 

hold them to be subject to laws as fixed as matter itself, and 
to be as fit a subject for the application of the highest intel- 
lectual power. Denunciation may indeed fall upon the phi- 
losophical inquirer into these first principles as it did upon 
Galileo and Bacon, when they first unfolded the great discov- 
eries which have immortalized their names ; but the time wiU 
come when truth will prevail in spite of prejudice and denun- 
ciation, and when politics and legislation will be considered as 
much a science as astronomy and chemistry." 

The crowd was great in the Senate chamber during Mr. 
Calhoun's speech ; in the galleries more particularly. While 
he was uttering some of his brilliant periods, in the very tor- 
rent, tempest, and whirlwind of his eloquence, a man in the 
gallery suddenly confounded the audience by exclaiming, in a 
shriek-like voice, " Mr. President !" and before the presiding 
officer could take measures to repress the outrage, he con- 
tinued, " j\Ir. President, something must be done, or I shall 
be squeezed to death !" It was sometime before order could 
be restored, or the dignity of the Senate re-established. The 
ludicrous nature of the interruption aflfected the gi-avity of 
almost every person present, even of grave Senators ; of all, 
perhaps, but the orator, upon whose countenance there passed 
not the shade of an emotion. The riirid muscles showed no relax- 
ation, but every feature remained unmoved and inflexible. He 
proceeded as if naught had occurred of singularity, and his 
deep and earnest tones soon recalled the minds of the audi- 
ence to the subject they had for a moment forgotten. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 235 

He spoke parts of two days — concluding at two o'clock of 
the second day, as soon as he finished his speech, Mr. Web- 
ster took the floor in reply ; universal opinion assuming that 
he alone was qualified to follow Mr. Calhoun. 

Before Mr. Webster consented to address the Senate on the 
bill, he had demanded the incorporation into it of certain 
amendatory provisions. Everything he asked was conceded 
by its friends. He prepared, therefore, or redrafted seve- 
ral of the most useful sections of the bill ; not those which 
looked to the application of military force, but such as pro- 
vided for the full exercise of the judicial power of the United 
States, notwithstanding the State laws which had been passed 
to defeat the exercise of that jurisdiction. 

The high and equal rank of these two rivals, — the greatest 
intellects, it is not invidious to say, of the whole country, — 
and the momentous nature of the contest between them drew, 
of course, a much greater than ordinary crowd to the Capitol. 
Mr. Webster's reply to Hayne had made curiosity more eager 
to hear him again ; while the singular position of Mr. Cal- 
houn, the doubt of his purposes, and his unrivalled abilities, 
served equally to attract multitudes. 

The Executive Department of the Government was repre- 
sented daily in the Senate during the discussion of this mea- 
sure by one or more of its members. The Chief Magistrate, 
it is true, conceded to precedence, and withheld his presence 
from the open debate. But members of his Cabinet gratified 
their own curiosity and his wishes, and appeared among the 



236 CHAPTER xr. 

audience ; no one of whom watched the proceedings and the 
various speeches with more anxiety than the Secretary of War, 
Lewis Cass. He occupied a somewhat hazardous position. 
An aspirant after greater honors, he saw no certain way to 
preserve the present and secure the future. On the one side 
the fatal anger of Gen. Jackson threatened to pursue the 
sHo;htest defection from his will ; on the other, outrao-ed State 
Kights would seek plenary vengeance against the person who 
wantonly or weakly assailed them. The first intimidated him 
with the loss of present position ; the latter, with the loss of 
future pre-eminence. The organ through which the inten- 
tions of the President, if hostile to the pretended rights of 
States, must yet find expression in voice and act, the Secre- 
tary of War felt, that any measure of force, whether aggres- 
sive or merely defensive, would excite against his name great 
obloquy at the South. From a due regard to his own inter- 
ests, therefore, as well as, undoubtedly, from a warm attach- 
ment to the Union, he labored with great earnestness to har- 
monize the conflicting elements ; in which laudable endeavor, 
he was zealously seconded, generally, by the rest of the Cabi- 
net. 

After Mr. Webster's reply to Col. Hayne, in which the 
general opinion at the time held that the latter was worsted, 
Mr. Calhoun, in conversation with a friend, attributed the re- 
sult to Mr. Hayne's want of previous training, and of proper 
constitutional knowledge ; and intimated that with another 
competitor, Mr. Webster might not have borne ofi" the honors 



DANIEL WEBSTER, 237 

of the contest so easily. That Mr. Calhoun was superior to 
Mr. Hayne, alike in natural capacity and acquired knowledge, 
will be generally and readily conceded ; but that he obtained 
over Mr. Webster, in the dialectic contest now commemorated, 
more of a victory than Col. Hayne, there would be many to 
dispute. It needs a poet, it is said, to judge of poetry, and, 
reasoning upon the same principle, a constitutional lawyer 
alone could safely pronounce upon the merits of a constitu- 
tional argument. To estimate with nicety the relative ability 
of such profound arguments as those of Mr. Calhoun and Mr. 
Webster, must presuppose the power of making an equal one. 
Still, if the common judgment may be holden as arbiter — and 
to what more certain or more accurate have we to look — there 
would be no hesitation in the adjustment of the relative merits 
of the two efforts. 

Mr. Webster, in his speech, confined himself closely to the 
argument. Unlike Mr. Calhoun, he indulged neither in per- 
sonal explanations nor philosophical observations, which, 
however profound and brilliant in themselves, had no perti- 
nency to the issue. 

His statement of Mr. Calhoun's theory sounds like its refu- 
tation. " Beginning," he said, '' with the original error, that 
the Constitution of the United States is nothing but a conjpact 
between sovereign States ; asserting, in the next step, that 
each State has a right to be its own sole judge of the extent 
of its own obligations, and, consequently, of the constitu- 
tionality of laws of Congress ; and, in the next, that it may 



23S CHAPTER XI. 

oppose whatever it sees fit to declare unconstitutional, and that 
it decides for itself on the mode and measure of redress, the 
argument arrives at once at the conclusion, that what a State 
dissents from, it may nullify ; what it opposes, it may oppose 
by force ; what it decides for itself, it may execute by its own 
power ; and that, in short, it is itself supreme over the legis- 
lation of Congress, and supreme over the decisions of the na- 
tional judicature — supreme over the Constitution of the country 
— supreme over the supreme law of the land. However it 
seeks to protect itself against these plain inferences, by saying 
that an unconstitutional law is no law, and that it only opposes 
such laws as are unconstitutional, yet this does not, in the 
slightest degree, vary the result, since it insists on deciding 
this question for itself ; and, in opposition to reason and argu- 
ment, in opposition to practice and experience, in opposition 
to the judgment of others having an equal right to judge, it 
says only : ^ Such is my opinion, and my opinion shall be my 
law, and I will support it by my own strong hand. I denounce 
the law. I declare it unconstitutional ; that is enough ; it 
shall not be executed. Men in arms are ready to resist its 
execution. An attempt to enforce it shall cover the land with 
blood. Elsewhere, it may be binding ; but here, it is trampled 
under foot.' This, sir, is practical nullification." 

Against all such theories, opinions, or heresies, Mr. "Webster 
maintained, — 

I. That the Constitution of the United States is not a 
league, confederacy, or compact, between the people of the 



DANIEL WEBSTER, 239 

several States in their sovereign capacities ; but a G-overnment 
proper, founded on the adoption of the people, and creating 
direct relations between itself and individuals. 

II. That no State authority has power to dissolve those re- 
lations ; that nothing can dissolve them but revolution ; and 
that, consequently, there can be no such thing as secession 
without revolution. 

III. That there is a supreme law, consisting of the Consti- 
tution of the United States, acts of Congress passed in pur- 
suance of it, and treaties ; and that, in cases not capable of 
assuming the character of a suit in law or equity, Congress 
must judge of, and iinally interpret, this supreme law, so often 
as it has occasion to pass acts of legislation ; and, in cases 
capable of assuming, and actually assuming, the character of a 
suit, the Supreme Court of the United States is the final in- 
terpreter. .^ 

IV. That an attempt by a State to abrogate, annul, or nul- 
lify an Act of Congress, or to arrest its operation within her 
limits, on the ground that, in her opinion, such law is uncon- 
stitutional, is a direct usurpation on the just powers of the 
General Government, and on the equal rights of other States ; 
a plain violation of the Constitution, and a proceeding essen- 
tially revolutionary in its character and tendency. 

These four propositions Mr. Webster maintained with a 
variety of illustration and power of argument that surprised 
even those who estimated his abilities most highly. The oc- 
casion certainly demanded all the intellect with which he had 



240 CHAPTER XI. 

been endowed. His opponent had given to his argument such 
an air of plausibility as to deceive many. If he had not suc- 
ceeded wholly in making the worse appear the better reason, 
he had stao-aered former convictions, and unsettled the most 

DO ' 

deliberate belief. All objections to his theory he had refuted 
and exposed to ridicule, and no one of his opponents had been 
able to recover from his vigorous and well-directed blows. 

Within the scope of this work, it would be impossible to 
adduce sufficient of Mr. ^Yebster^s argument to justify a be- 
lief in his positions ; a circumstance, the less to be regretted, 
perhaps, since to the general reader his propositions will appear 
self-evident truths. Still, no one in pursuit of examples of the 
most masterly logic ; no one who seeks to acquire a certain 
knowledge of the theory and practice of Constitutional 
Law ; no one, in fine, who would behold the dignity of human 
reason in its loftiest expression, can safely pretermit the perusal 
and study of this great effort. 

There was not the opportunity in this speech, as in the 
reply to Hayne, for the exhibition of the various powers of the 
speaker. Here no sarcasm was required, no humor, no wit, 
and no impassioned eloquence. The mind was to be convinced, 
not tlie passions excited. The effect was to be permanent, 
rather than immediate ; and it was the cause of his country, 
not personal gratification, that the orator was to strive to 
establish. 

In the earlier part of his speech, Mr. Webster made an 
allusion to his reply to Hayne. " Mr. President,'' he said, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 241 

*' if I considered the constitutional question now before us as 
doubtful as it is important, and if I supposed this decision, 
either in the Senate or bj the country, was likely to be in- 
fluenced in any degree by the manner in which I might now 
discuss it, this would be to me a moment of deep soKcitude. 
Such a moment has once existed. There has been a time, 
when, rising in this place, on the same question, I felt, I must 
confess, that something for good or evil to the Constitution of 
the country might depend on an eflfort of mine. But circum- 
stances are changed. Since that day, sir, the public opinion 
has become awakened to this great question ; it has grasped 
it ; it has reasoned upon it, as becomes an intelligent and 
patriotic community ; and has settled it, or now seems in the 
progress of settling it, by an authority which none can disobey 
— the authority of the people themselves." 

Still it was well, that Mr. Webster put forth unreserved the 
energies of his mind on this occasion. Nullification had in 
part recovered from the severity of his first blow, and, foster- 
ed by Mr. Calhoun, was again rearing its horrid front against 
the Union. It might have been successful, but for Mr. Web- 
ster's gigantic argument, in theory ; it may be successful 
hereafter, but can only be so, since such argument, hy force — 
No reason but ultima ratio regum — " the last reason of kings" 
or republics — can justify it now. 

The words of solemn warnino; with which he concluded his 
argument, cannot be too often heard and repeated ; and could 
not be more fitly introduced than now, when the idea of dis- 



242 CHAPTER XI. 

union seems once more to occupy the weak imagination of 
fanatics, at either extremity of the Union. " Mr. President, if 
the friends of nullification should be able to propagate their 
opinions, and give them practical effect, they would, in my 
judgment, prove themselves the most skilful architects of 
ruin, the most effectual extinguishers of high-raised expect- 
ation, the greatest blasters of human hopes, which any age 
has produced. They would stand up to proclaim, in tones 
which would pierce the ears of half the human race, that the 
last great experiment of representative government had failed. 
They would send forth sounds, at the hearing of which, the 
doctrine of the divine right of kings would feel, even in its 
grave, a returning sensation of vitality and resuscitation. 
Millions of eyes, of those who now feed their inherent love of 
liberty on the success of the American example, would turn 
away from beholding our dismemberment, and find no place on 
earth whereon to rest their gratified sight. Amidst the incan- 
tations and orgies of nullification, secession, disunion, and 
revolution, would be celebrated the funereal rites of constitu- 
tional and republican liberty." 

The thronged Senate-chamber, while it listened to the deep 
tones of the speaker, as in his most impressive manner he 
pronounced this eloquent admonition, surged like the sea. 
You saw the undulating motion of the crowd, leaning forward 
to catch each word as it fell, and forced back to its original 
position. It was late in the evening when the orator got 
through his speech. The emotions of the multitude, which 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 243 

had been repressed during the day did not hesitate to find ar- 
ticulate and forcible expression under the protecting shadows 
of night ; and hardly had the speaker concluded his remarks, 
before the galleries, rising to a man, gave a hearty, vociferous 
cheer, for ^' Daniel Webster, the defender of the Constitu- 
tion." 

Mr. Poindexter immediately started to his feet and moved 
an adjournment. But the presiding officer ordered the galle- 
ries to be cleared, refusing to put the motion to adjourn till 
after order had been restored ; and then the Senate adjourned. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The debate languished after tlie conclusion of Mr. Calhoun's 
and Mr. Webster's speeches. The crowd that had filled the 
Senate Chamber daily to hear them, gradually thinned. The 
public curiosity to listen to the debate, which had grown 
stronger from its first opening to the great argument, 
reached its highest point at the conclusion thereof, and thence 
subsided into its ordinary character of indifference. There 
were some good speeches on the subject, however, made later. 
Mr. Forsyth made an able argument for the bill, and refuted, 
with brief but emphatic logic, the objections urged against it. 
He had not prepared himself fully for the discussion, but he 
spoke enough to convince his audience of his ability to say 
more, equally well. Mr. Miller, of South Carolina, followed 
him on the other side, as briefly if not as ably. Speaking of 
Mr. Webster's position towards the administration as com- 
pared with his position in the Hayne controversy, he said : 
" The Senator from Massachusetts is now the alpha with the 
powers that be ; it is not long since he was the omega." Mr. 
Poindexter also made a speech. How much or little of other 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 245 

merit it possessed, it wanted one sadly — the merit of brevity. 
There was but little in his constitutional argument not better 
expressed byTMr. Calhoun or Mr. Tyler : in personal invective, 
however, he borrowed from neither of those gentlemen. He 
drew his inspiration therein from his disposition. Mr. G-rundy 
spoke with a good deal of plausibility and ingenuity of argu- 
ment, particularly against the assumed right of any State to 
secede from the Union, at its option. Mr. Ewing of Ohio 
followed, and closed the debate. He rose to speak about six 
o'clock in the evening, spoke half an hour, and then gave way 
to a motion for adjournment. The motion was lost. It was 
the determination of the managers of the bill to take a vote 
upon it before adjournment. Against such intention, Mr. 
Calhoun protested. He said that as the debate was closed on 
the part of the opponents of the bill, and as there was no dis- 
position on their part to delay its passage, he hoped that the 
gentlemen on the other side would consent to postpone the 
final question until the morning, as the Senate was thin, and a 
bill of such importance ought to pass in a full Senate. Several 
o-entlemen, he said, had retired from indisposition. 

Mr. Wilkins rendered a tribute to the liberality of the gen- 
tleman from South Carolina, who had postponed his intention 
of addressing the Senate, and had thus facilitated the termina- 
tion of the debate. But as the Senate had been notified that 
the bill would be urged through this evening, and as it was 
therefore to be presumed that every Senator was prepared to 



246 CHAPTER xri. 

vote, and as the public mind was desirous that this question 
should be disposed of, he could not consent to delay, 

Mr. Calhoun then moved that the Senate adjourn, but, 
after some interlocution with members near him, withdrew the 
motion, 

Mr. Ewing then resumed, and continued his remarks till 
half-past nine o'clock, when he yielded the floor to Mr 
Holmes, who moved an adjournment. 

By this time. Senators exhibited conclusive indications of 
exhaustion. Some nodded in their seats ; others were strown 
upon the sofas behind the bar ; a few had left the Senate, and 
gone to their lodgings. There were none who felt not fatigued, 
and almost overborne by the protracted and ardent contest. 
But the confidential friends of the President, Messrs. Wilkins 
and Grundy, would listen to no entreaty for adjournment 
This was the day, this the hour, to determine the fate of the 
bill. Senators had suffered, perhaps, but they could suffer a 
little more, for their country. Their merit would be the 
greater from their present sacrifice. 

Mr. Wilkins demanded the yeas and nays on Mr. Holmes' 
motion to adjourn ; which, being taken, stood, thirteen for 
adjournment, twenty-three against it. 

Mr. Ewing again took the floor, and spoke an hour longer. 

In the meanwhile, several Senators, some favorable and some 
adverse to the bill, left the Senate, unwilling or unable to 
await the termination of the debate ; the two Senators from 
Missouri among others, thereby avoiding a record of their vote. 



DANIEL WEBSTER, 247 

As soon as Mr. Ewing concluded his speech, Mr. Webster 
demanded the ayes and noes on the passage of the bill. 
Whereupon Mr. Tjler rose, and moved that the Senate ad- 
journ. He stated that he had been induced to make the 
motion because he saw that several Senators who were opposed 
to the bill were absent from their seats, and he thought that 
the bill had better receive its final action early in the morning. 
Mr. Wilkins replied that the gentlemen whose seats were 
empty, had but a few minutes before withdrawn from the 
Senate, and he presumed that, as they must be in the imme- 
diate vicinity, they would return in time to vote on the bill. 

The motion to adjourn was then lost by the decisive vote of 
twenty-seven noes to five ayes. 

Mr. Calhoun and some of his friends, who had waited in or 
near the Senate till the last hope of delaying action on the 
bill was lost, now, with some parade, left the Senate and the 
Capitol, having first endeavored to persuade Mr. Tyler to ac- 
company them. He replied, he would remain to the crack of 
doom, but he would record his vote against this tyrannical 
measure — though his vote should be the only one against it. 

Finally, all efforts to postpone a vote having failed, the 
question on the passage of the bill was taken at half-past eleven 
o'clock, and decided as follows : 

Yeas. — Bell, Chambers, Clayton, Dallas, Dickerson, Dudley, 
Ewing, Foot, Forsyth, Frelinghuysen, Grundy, Hendricks, 
Hill, Holmes, Johnston, Kane, Knight, Xai/dain, Prentiss, 
Bives, Robbins, Robbinson, Kuggles, Silsbee, Sprague, Tipton, 



248 CHAPTER XII. 

Tomlinson, Waggaman, Webster, White, Wilkins, Wright. — 
32. 

Nay. — John Tyler. 

And the Senate adjourned at midnight. 

In this list will be found the great name neither of Benton, 
Clay, nor Calhoun. It is not known that Mr. Benton ever 
assigned a reason for not voting ; but those who are acquainted 
with the public and private career of the distinguished Senator, 
can well believe that it was from no want of moral courage that 
he did not record his name. Mr. Clay stated to the Senate, 
the day after the vote, that he found it impossible to breathe 
the impure air of the Senate-chamber after dinner. He had 
been twice compelled to absent himself from the Senate in the 
evening ; and the night before, he was prevented from giving 
the vote which he would have given with pleasure in favor of 
the bill which had then passed. Mr. Calhoun said, that he 
had been anxious the night before, the vote should be post- 
poned till to-day, that it might be taken in the full Senate. 

With this object in view, he had then moved an adjournment, 
but the majority of the Senate was inexorable. The only 
course that then remained for himself and his friends was, to 
vote in a minority which would not contain the strength of the 
opposition to the bill, or to leave the Senate ; and they had 
determined on the latter as the most correct course, and as 
the best calculated to convey an accurate expression of the 
feeling of the Senate. 

Mr. Clay made no speech upon the bill. There may be 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 249 

those who think his silence distinguished him more than his 
participation in the debate could have done ; as the image of 
Brutus omitted in the pageant of the conqueror, was considered 
more honorable to him than its presence could have been. 
And there may be those who think that it indicated faint- 
heartedness, or lukewarmness at least, to have been so passive 
when such momentous interests were in discussion. Leaving 
such persons, if there be such, to the enjoyment of their va- 
rious opinion, it may be well to suggest the probable solution 
of his taciturnity. It is well known that during the whole 
discussion, the eminent Senator was devoted, with an incessant 
and intense application, to the maturing and bringing forward 
of his COMPROMISE — a measure which, from its importance, of 
principle no less than detail, demanded the entire absorption 
of even his intellectual energies. This measure he succeeded 
to introduce before the passage of the Force Bill. Its healing 
character doubtless tempered the acrimony of debate upon that 
bill, and avoided any disastrous results from its passage. 
Many will contend that the principle and policy of this famous 
COMPROMISE were alike wrong, but none will deny to its dis- 
tingui^'-hed author a magnanimous intention, nor to the measure 
itself a conciliatory result. It afforded to both of the two dis- 
tin<^uished parties to this fierce controversy the opportunity of 
withdrawal, without personal dishonor or civil war — an oppor- 
tunity neither was reluctant to embrace. 



General Jackson took an early opportunity to express in 
11* 



250 CHAPTER Xtl. 

person to ^fr. Webster, his sincere gratitude for the eminent 
services rendered by that gentleman, in such perilous moment, 
to his administration ; and Mr. Livingston, the Secretary of 
State, repeatedly, and in warm terms, made his own acknow- 
ledgments besides. In truth, it was conceded everywhere that, 
but for the efforts of Mr. "Webster, and of the friends who 
rallied under him, the administration would have fallen into a 
powerless and pitiable condition ; an object of opprobrium to 
its friends, and of safe insult to its foes. 

A community of sentiment and action, in this fearful crisis 
of our national history, brought Gleneral Jackson and Mr. 
Webster into stricter intimacy, social and political, than had 
previously ever subsisted between them. Some of the Gene- 
ral's friends hoped, and more feared, a closer official relation- 
ship. In May of this year, Mr. Webster journeyed West ; 
returning in June, he met Mr. Livingston in New York, then 
preparing to depart on his mission to France. It was under- 
stood at this time, in private and confidential circles, that, be- 
fore leaving Washington, Mr. Livingston had had frequent and 
earnest conversations with General Jackson in relation to Mr. 
Webster's position ; and that he had urged upon him the abso- 
lute necessity of securing Mr. Webster's continued support of 
his administration. To his suggestions General Jackson gave 
a favorable ear and acquiescence ; and authorized Mr. Living- 
ston to approach Mr. Webster upon the subject. These 
conversations and their result, Mr, Livingston, in his inter- 
view with him in New York, communicated to Mr. Webster. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 251 

That a seat in the cabinet was at the same time proposed to 
Mr. "Webster, on the part of the President, through the same 
medium of communication, was a belief warmly entertained 
by some of the nearest friends of both parties. One fact it is 
allowable to mention ; a distinguished Senator, a political and 
personal friend of General Jackson, brought Mr. Webster a 
list of the intended nominees for offices in the Eastern States, 
and asked him to erase therefrom the names of any, personally 
objectionable to him. This Mr. Webster declined to do, not 
wishing to place himself under any obligations to the adminis- 
tration, that might qualify the freedom of his action, either in 
support or repudiation of its measures. 

On many points of what was then the proposed policy of the 
administration, there was no marked difference of opinion be- 
tween these two eminent men ; in its foreign policy, particu- 
larly, they almost entirely concurred ; but there was a radical 
and fatal difference on the great question of the currency. 
The measures G-eneral Jackson thought it necessary to take 
to prevent pecuniary loss to to the country from the unchecked 
operations of the United States Bank, did not meet Mr. 
Webster's concurrence. Indeed, the removal of the govern- 
ment deposits from that institution, however justifiable on the 
ground of expediency or even necessity, was a measure of 
such formidable energy, as to confound some of the general's 
longest tried and not most timid supporters. It encountered 
Mr. Webster's opposition, and even denunciation. And this 
honest difference of opinion, in regard to a matter of tempo- 



252 CHAPTER XII. 

rary importance, prevented the union of the two master- 
spirits of the age, and blasted the patriotic hopes of the coun- 
try. 

How much of party animosity might have been assuaged, how 
much of pubhc good promoted, and national honor how greatly 
advanced, by the consummation of such an union ! How high 
the tide of public prosperity had risen, with such luminaries 

in conjunction ! 

The moral and intellectual attributes of one were the 

complement of the other. Not that both did not possess 

mental and moral characteristics of the same nature ; but 

some one quality would appear more predominant in one, and 

some other quality, equally distinguished, in the other ; both 

more brilliant from contrast. 

History records few instances of more adamantine will and 
inflexibility of purpose, than characterized Andrew Jackson. 
Napoleon himself had not greater, nor more intuitive know- 
ledge of men, or far-reaching sagacity. What he willed he 
accomplished ; his mind never faltered, and his purpose never 
changed. 

He was got up on the statuesque model of a hero of Plu- 
tarch. His qualities were all clearly and boldly defined ; but 
without extravagance or deformity. There was nothing com- 
mon-place in his character or thought. He acted and spoke 
with the freshness and power of genius. He dared every- 
thing ; yet to his dauntless nature there was added a haughti- 
ness of spirit that withheld him from vulgar strife. He 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 253 

ruslied to his purpose like a torrent from the mountain ; no 
obstacle could retard his course, nor opposition restrain his 
impetuosity. The fiery vehemence of his will swept every- 
thing before it. Men gazed at its resistless career, and gave 
way, overcome with apprehension. To oppose him was to 
encounter destiny. 

Such a determined will and fearless nature, with attendant 
power, wanted but direction to accomplish miracles of good. 

Such direction could have been found in jMr. Webster, 
whose comprehensiveness of view, calmness of deliberation, 
sagacity, and singleness of purpose had admirably qualified 
him for a controlling adviser. His intellectual majesty would 
have secured the admiration of his great ally, and tempered 
the vehemence of his action. He would have had the mind 
to plan what the other would have had the heart to execute. 
He would have been the engineer to give direction and speed 
to the locomotive ; regulating its power, according to the ob- 
stacles to be overcome, or the thing to be accomplished. 

But no such happiness was reserved for the country. A 
strong schism supervened within a year after Mr. Webster's 
defence of the administration, between him and the Presi- 
dent; and the country went on in a career of intermittent 
disaster. 



After the adjournment of Congress in the spring of this 
year (1833,) Mr. Webster visited the West. No conqueror 
flushed with recent victories could have had a more triumphal 



254 CHAPTER XII. 

reception. His progress was one ovation. Cities poured out 
their crowds on his approach, tendering hospitality ; and mu- 
nicipal authorities entertained him while he tarried. Invitations 
soliciting a visit were sent to him from every State of the 
West, expressed in warm and urgent language. At Buffalo, 
a public dinner and other courtesies were extended to him, 
His brief visit compelled him to decline the dinner ; but he 
addressed the citizens of the place, and was responded to with 
enthusiasm. At Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, he was re- 
ceived with even more marked distinction. The citizens 
turned out en masse, and waited for his arrival at a spacious 
grove, where a handsome entertainment was prepared for him. 
The mayor of the city, in presenting him to the crowd, ad- 
dressed to them these, among other words : " Gentlemen, we 
are this day citizens of the United States. The Union is 
safe. Not a star has fallen from that proud banner around 
which our affections have so long rallied. And when, with 
this delightful assurance, we cast our eyes back upon the 
eventful history of the last year — when we recall the gloomy 
apprehensions, and perhaps hopeless despondency, which came 
over us, who, gentlemen, can learn, without a glow of enthu- 
siasm, that the great champion of the Constitution — that 
Daniel Webster, is now in the midst of us. To his mighty 
intellect, the nation, with one voice, confided its cause of life 
or death. Ours is a government not of force, but of opinion. 
The reason of the people must be satisfied before a call to 
arms This consideration is it that imparts to intellectual 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 255 

pre-enilnence in the service of truth its incalculable value. 
And hence the preciousness of that admirable and unanswer- 
able exposition, which has put down, once and forever, the 
artful sophisms of nullification." 

In reply, Mr. "Webster said, in allusion to General Jackson's 
conduct during the perilous crisis of nullification : " Gentle- 
men, the President of the United States was, as it seemed to 
me, at this eventful crisis, true to his duty. He comprehend- 
ed and understood the case, and met it as it was proper to 
meet it. "While I am as willing as others to admit that the 
President has, on other occasions, rendered important services 
to the country, and especially on that occasion which has given 
him so much military renown, I yet think the ability and de- 
cision with which he resisted the disorganizins- doctrines of 
nullification, created a claim, than which he has none higher, 
to the gratitude of the country, and the respect of posterity. 
The issuing of the proclamation of the 10th of December, 
inspired me, I confess, with new hopes for the duration of the 
Kepublic. I would not be understood to speak of particular 
clauses and phrases in the proclamation : but its great and 
leading doctrines, I regard as the true and only true doctrines 
of the Constitution. They constitute the sole ground on 
which dismemberment can be resisted. Nothing else, in my 
opinion, can hold us together. "VYhile those opinions are en- 
tertained, the Union will last ; when they shall be generally 
rejected and abandoned, that Union will be at the mercy of a 
teoiporary majority in any one of the States." 



256 CHAPTER XII. 

At other places wliicli lie visited he was received with no 
less consideration. His engagements at home prevented him 
from accepting the greater part of the invitations extended 
him, and compelled him, reluctantly, to return. 

All this was the grateful response of the people to a meri- 
torious servant. It was the expression of their opinion of the 
value and extent of his services — the voluntary homage of their 
heart. These, however, were not the first testimonials of pub- 
lic gratitude for great constitutional services Mr. Webster had 
received. For his previous effort in defence of the Constitution, 
he had been honored with the grateful thanks of some of the 
wisest and best men of the country. The year following his 
reply to Mr. Hayne, he was invited by a large number of the 
most respectable citizens of New York and its vicinity, among 
whom were many distinguished gentlemen of both political 
parties, to meet them at a festival, offered to him as an ex- 
pression of their great gratification at the course he had pur- 
sued in that memorable Constitutional contest. Chancellor 
Kent, who presided on the occasion, on addressing their guest, 
alluded in this felicitous manner to his speech : " It turned the 
attention of the public to the great doctrines of natural rights 
and national union. Constitutional law ceased to remain 
wrapped up in the breasts, and taught only by the responses, 
of the living oracles of the law. Socrates was said to have 
drawn philosophy from the skies, and scattered it among the 
schools. It may, with equal truth, be said, that Constitutional 
law, by means of these Senatorial discussions, and the master- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 257 

genius that guided them, was rescued from the archives of our 
tribunals and the libraries of lawyers, and placed under the 
eye, and submitted to the judgment, of the American people. 
Their verdict is with us, and from it there lies no appeal.'''' • 

And another writer, hardly less eminent, Mr. Everett, has 
said of his arguments on the same, and later occasions : " The 
student of Constitutional law will ever resort to the speeches 
of Mr. Webster with the same deference that he pays to the 
numbers of the Federalist, and the opinions of Chief Justice 
Marshall. * * * The speech in reply to Mr. Calhoun 
and the speech on the Protest, are like leaves of the Consti- 
tution. They are authorities rather than illustrations. While 
we are engaged in perusing them, everything like mere dis- 
course, however ingenious, forcible, or ornate, seems compara- 
tively insipid." 

With such demonstrations of public gratitude, and such ex- 
pressions of warm encomium, were Mr. Webster's conduct and 
speeches on these two momentous occasions received through- 
out the country. All conceded to him ardent patriotism, in- 
corruptible integrity, and unequalled ability. An emergency 
never arises without its accompanying and controlling spirit ; 
and Daniel Webster seems to have been alone, of all the 
country, the man for each perilous crisis. But for him. Nulli- 
fication, decorated and recommended by its two most ingenious 
and accomplished champions, might have seduced the affec- 
tions of the people, and gained a permanent existence, to the 
inevitable disruption of the Union. But for him, our fathers' 



258 CHAPTER xir. 

legacy, the Constitution of the United States — the 
great charter of political and social right — might have become 
a dishonored and worthless parchment. And but for him, 
constitutional and republican liberty — as it exists with us, 
the last hope of nations, — might have become a hissing and a 
reproach throughout the world. It was not without cause, 
then, that the country, with an almost univocal expression of 
its sentiment, greeted him with the title — prouder than mon- 
arch ever bestowed — of" Defender of the Constitution." 



The wonderful interest felt in all of Mr. Webster's speeches 
springs from the language as well as the sentiment. A 
phrase often suggests abundant copiousness of thought ; a 
word gives rise to feelings inexpressibly sweet or profound, 
like tunes in music ; which recall times when freshness of 
heart was ours, ere bitter experience had belied the trusting- 
ness of earlier days. He borrows from no author, ancient 
or modern, either style or sentiment; and yet there is no 
speech of bis not impregnated with the offiatm divinus of 
classical antiquity. The choicest productions of antiquity 
are fragrant of no flower which does not perfume his works ; 
because his thought, like those of the antique world, is 
fresh, original, earnest, and finds correspondent articula- 
tion. 

The encomium, which Quinctilian bestowed upon the philo- 
sophical writings of Brutus, " Scias eum sentire qum dicit,^^ 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 259 

you know that he/ge/s wliat he says — applies with greater truth 
to Mr. Webster's works. He has felt himself what he makes 
us feel. His whole heart is in his language, and warms his 
page. This is the secret of its wonderful effect. The sacred 
historian informs us that " G-od gave Solomon largeness of 
heart ;" and we need no other solution of the popularity of 
his writings, in every clime, from generation to generation. 
It requires a great heart to express a great truth. The learn- 
ing of the schools cannot supply the want thereof; the wis- 
dom of the wisest would strive in vain to make good its loss. 
To enrich the understanding, to stimulate or satisfy the ar- 
dent mind, is far easier than to gain the heart ; one faculty 
can be acquired, the other is innate. You must be born an 
orator no less than a poet ; for all of poetry is not rhythm, 
nor all of oratory language. There is something in both that 
eludes the most diligent and pertinacious analysis. 

Compared with the productions of the most eminent orators 
of ancient or modern times, in what respect is the reply to 
Hayne inferior : In what production of ancient or modern 
times, shall we look for such a variety of genius ? Where 
shall we find such majestic simplicity of expression, such 
beauty of illustration, such appropriateness of diction, where 
such ideal beauty of thought, embodied in such pleasing forms, 
where such gigantic power of reasoning, such depth of pas- 
sion, such elevation of soul .'' 

In tempestuous eloquence, which carries away in its un- 
governed force, speaker no less than hearer, Demosthenes un- 



260 CHAPTER xir. 

doubtedly surpassed him ; in carefully-elaborated periods, in 
equi-ponderance of sentences, in studied bursts of passion, as 
well as in general pliilosophy, Cicero excelled him. But what 
one work of either of those great masters of eloquence presents 
such a combination of various excellencies as the reply to 
Hayne ? In what phillipic of either, or other immortal pro- 
duction, shall we look for its equal ? 

Of Modern Eloquence, we know nothing comparable. 
Much of Chatham depends upon tradition ; more, perhaps, 
upon partial reporters ; but, conceding to him all his most ar- 
dent admirers ever claimed, we still should deny him much 
reach of thought, or even well-sustained eloquence. Voice, 
manner, gesture, majesty of presence — all these he had • 
but all these produce but a temporary effect. His elo- 
quence electrified rather than convinced ; astonished more 
than it confuted ; and mastered the passions rather than 
the judgment of men. It flashed like the lightning, which 
men gazed at with a fearful interest, ignorant of its direction ; 
but once gone, the mind soon returned to its previous thought. 
His fame as an orator is the greater, that he left so little to 
sustain it. Contemporaneous opinion has been more favorable 
to him than faithful record might have been. No entire speech 
of his is extant ; the fragmentary parts which we have, it is 
true, like the celebrated Torso of antiquity, reveal the posses- 
sion of great genius, and forbid the hope of their completion 
by another hand. Still they afford no sufficient indication of 
what the merits of the whole would have been. 



DANIEL WEBSTKR. 261 

The pliilosopliical orator of England — Edmund Eurke — 
whose magnificent imagery, power of illustration, and yio-or 
of thought have never been surpassed, was yet so warped by 
prejudice, was such a self-deluding sophist, as to leave no one 
production, not as much marred by great defects, as charac- 
terized by inimitable excellencies. In style, too, almost every 
work of his is as objectionable as in sentiment. He scatters, 
with a lavish hand, such a wasteful profusion of imagery, as 
to almost drown the sense of his meanino;. The mind is 
puzzled, wearied by the accumulation of illustrations, and 
loses all command of the subject-matter. No one speech of 
this great writer, not the speech against Hastings, can hold 
the unwearied attention throughout. 

There can be found in the speeches neither of Fox nor of 
his more distinguished rival — great Chatham's greater son — 
one, the equal to this of Mr. Webster's, in various merit. 
Fox exhibited at times more fiery declamation and more fervid 
eloquence ; Pitt, more severity of invective and a wider 
range of argument ; but neither, on any occasion, ever 
made a speech so complete in every point. 

Brougham's speech on the Reform Bill, a masterly produc- 
tion doubtless, wants compactness of expression, and fidelity 
to the main question of debate, comparatively. But there 
axe many passages of great eloquence in it, and its peroration 
is only inferior to Webster's. 

The great charm of this speech, of all speeches of Mr. 
Webster, is the ardent patriotism and devotion to liberty that 



262 CHAPTER xir. 

pervade them ; a patriotism, not of a fanatical but universal 
character ; not hating other countries from love of natal soil ; 
but radiating from home a feeling of charity and good will 
upon all mankind ; a devotion to liberty, as far removed from 
licentiousness as tyranny — liberty inseparable from virtue, 
from public and private morals — that imposes checks upon 
itself, and guards against the abuse of its own power. 

It is this, which gives to his works their wide-spread popu- 
larity. It is this which has acclimated them everywhere. It is 
this which has carried the English language further than 
English arms have ever done ; to regions of thick-ribbed ice, 
where day and night make one sad division of the year ; to the 
utmost isles of the sea, and lands beyond the solar road. 

He has spoken, and enslaved nations have started from the 
torpor of centuries. The down-trodden Greek has heard his 
voice, and risen upon his oppressors. The Turkish hordes 
have fallen where the Persian fell ; and Marathon and Salamis 
shine with a newer glory, and a wider emblasonry. 

As his words of cheering encouragement have crossed the 
equator and penetrated the southern seas, whole nations have 
thrown off the yoke of bondage, and achieved an independent 
existence. South America, emerging from beneath the hori- 
zon with its constellation of republics, has given light and 
gladness to the nations. His voice has called a New World 
into existence, to compensate for the decline of the old."^ 

*■ Englishmen give this praise to Canning, but hardly with as much 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 263 

It is not yet hushed ; his words have lost none of their 
vital force. The throes of Europe are their response. Sub- 
terranean fires are burning there with fatal activity 5 which 
burst out, ever and anon, in volcanic eruptions, overwhelming 
thrones, and destroying oppressors. It may not be long, ere 
one universal conflagration shall devour every vestige of 
tyranny, and liberated Europe spring up from the ruin, to re- 
commence a more glorious career, and accomplish a surer 
destiny. 

justice ; for our country recognized the independence of the South Ameri- 
can RepubUcs before England. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

It was the fortune of General Jackson's administration to 
have provoked or undergone more public excitement, spring- 
ing from causes of a domestic character, than that of either 
of his predecessors. A constant agitation pursued it through- 
out. The Hayne controversy roused the public mind from its 
apathetic state under the preceding administration, and stimu- 
lated it to apprehension and entertainment of elevated yet 
fearful themes. The war of nullification followed, ere the 
public pulse had recovered its accustomed tone, and gave a 
more turbulent motion to opinion. The ^'^ssions excited by 
this quarrel had not subsided, but swayed the minds of men 
to and fro, as if tempest-tossed, when the Removal of the 
Deposites supervened, and raised the whole country. 

The later history of the Bank of the United States may 
have reflected the necessity of this measure. Its subsequent 
mismanagement and explosion should, perhaps, be holden a 
retrospective justification of the decisive proceeding. Butj 
at the time the removal of the deposites took place, the policy 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 265 

of the measure was not generally understood, while the imme- 
diate consequences thereof were everywhere felt, and felt dis- 
astrously. 

It was no time for argument, however cogent ; because no 
argument is listened to, when interest or passion speaks. 
That the powers of the Bank were too extensive, its immuni- 
ties and privileges too unrestricted, few could now gainsay. 
Among the many dangerous powers enjoyed by this institu- 
tion, the control over the contraction and expansion of 
the currency was not the least so. By the exercise of this 
power it could affect, to a most calamitous extent, the busi- 
ness of the whole nation. It was a power that existed not 
merely in theory, but had been felt in practice. In 1818-19, 
the directors of the institution availed themselves of its fatal 
character, to enrich themselves and friends, to the great 
calamity of the country ; and, in 1831-32, to effect apolitical 
purpose, nearly thirty millions of loans were made in a few 
months, and called in again within as brief a time ; great 
individual and national distress following the experiment. A 
power liable to such dangerous abuse should be checked, 
though at the hazard of temporary inconvenience. 

The immediate consequence of Greneral Jackson's decisive 

act was, undoubtedly, disastrous. The country was in a state 

of seeming prosperity, commercial and agricultural ; but it 

was rather the hectic fiush of consumption, than the color of 

robust health. 

All kinds of operations had been stimulated by easy credits. 
12 



266 CHAPTER XIII. 

Every branch of business was pushed to its utmost extent, 
and stocks of every kind inflated, to near the limits of ro- 
mance. 

The withdrawal of eight millions from the bank, and the 
vindictive contraction of its issues by the bank, broke the 
bubble of speculation, and a collapse ensued. A severe 
pressure in the money market, the consequent high rate of 
interest, the depression of every kind of stock, and the low 
price of commodities, were the immediate results of these 
measures ; and, no less, a strong, almost fierce agitation of the 
community. 

The removal of the deposites took place in September, 1833 ; 
about two months afterwards, in the greatest heat of the pub- 
lic feeling upon the subject. Congress met. The debates in 
that body are not only the safety valves of public excitement, 
but to an almost exclusive degree, the record of its existence. 
What might be otherwise as frail in memory as evanescent in 
feeling becomes, by incorporation in the proceedings of Con- 
gress, a permanent fact. Parliamentary action, with a free 
people, is a history of their sentiments, their wishes, and, too 
often, of their follies. 

In the earliest of this session, Mr. Clay introduced a reso- 
lution into the Senate, calling upon the President for a copy 
of a paper said to have been read by him to the cabinet, in 
relation to the removal of the deposites, on the ISth of Sep- 
tember preceding ; which resolution he supported in an 
animated speech. It was carried, by a vote of twenty-three 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 267 

to eighteen. The State Rights men, who had not forgotten 
or forgiven General Jackson's decided course in the South 
Carolina controversy left the " Treasury Benches" in a body, 
and went over to the opposition ; thereby reducing the 
strength of the administration in the Senate to a minority. 

The answer of G-eneral Jackson to the resolution of the 
Senate was characteristic : " The Executive" — he said, in 
his communication to the Senate, ^' is a co-ordinate and 
independent branch of the Government equally with the 
Senate ; and I have yet to learn under what constituted au- 
thority that branch of the legislature has a right to require of 
me an account of any communication, either verbally or in 
writing, made to the heads of departments acting as a cabinet- 
council. As well might I be required to detail to the Senate 
the free and private conversation I have held with those 
oflScers on any subjects relating to their duties and my own." 

With this implied, if not direct, rebuke of the Senate for 
its unconstitutional interference in matters strictly executive, 
General Jackson declined compliance with the resolution. 

His answer was received by the Senate with no demonstra- 
tion of disrespectful anger ; but in calmness and necessary 
acquiescence. 

In the document which General Jackson submitted to his 
cabinet previous to the removal of the deposites — an ofi&cial 
copy of which Mr. Clay had been unable to obtain for the 
Senate — he said : " The President deems it his duty to com- 
municate in this manner to his cabinet, the final conclusions 



268 CHAPTER XIII. 

of his own mind, and the reasons on which they are founded ;" 
and, in concluding his address to them, he said : " The Pre- 
sident again repeats that he begs his cabinet to consider the 
proposed measure as his oivn, in support of which he shall re- 
quire no one of them to make a sacrifice of opinion or princi- 
ple. Its responsibiUty has been assumed, after the most 
mature deliberation and reflection, as necessary to preserve 
the morals of the people, the freedom of the press, and the 
purity of the elective franchise ; without which, all will unite 
in saying that the blood and treasure expended by our fore- 
fathers, in the establishment of our happy system of govern- 
ment, will have been vain and fruitless." A fierce clamor 
was raised against the President for the communication of 
these sentiments, by the less moderate of the Opposition, in 
and out of Congress. They denounced him as an usurper of 
powers unrecognized by the Constitution ; and charged upon 
him the intention of overthrowing the liberties of the country. 
Heated faction poured forth against him its choicest language 
of abuse, likening him to every variety of tyrant, lands 
most fertile in such products, ever nourished ; so that many 
honest, though most credulous people, in diflerent parts of 
the country, were sadly imposed upon. The fanaticism of 
party never achieved a more decided victory over sober 
truth. 

But truth has this advantage over error ; its conquests, if 
not so rapid, are permanent. And now that the delusion of 
the moment has passed away, with the excitement of which it 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 269 

was engendered, and reason has regained her sometime usurped 
authority, the conduct of General Jackson, in this menacing 
exigency of affairs, stands out boldly in the historical picture, 
reflecting courage, capacity, and marvellous foresight. 

He was the man for a crisis. He feared nothiuo;, he doubt- 
ed nothing ; he dared everything. He sought no evasion, he 
shunned no risk. He interposed no screen, no defence 
between himself and his enemies ; but advancingr to the 
very front of the battle, he defied them all ; " I am here, 
who have done this thing ; against me. against me, turn your 
weapons." He courted danger like a mistress. 

He thought the deposites unsafe in the vaults of the bank, 
and removed them. He found the Secretary of the Treasury 
too timid to incur his share of the responsibility, and removed 
him. He knew what denunciation awaited him from rancorous 
opponents ; what lukewarm support from timorous friends. 
He knew too his duty, and, heedless alike of fierce enmity or 
half-faced fellowship, dared perform it. 

Not discouraged, though defeated in his first attack, Mr. 
Clay renewed his assaults upon the administration for its con- 
duct in the matter of the public funds, with increased vigor. 
His indomitable courage and towering intellect, with his great 
Parliamentary tact, admirably qualified him for the post of 
leader, and made him no unworthy competitor of General 
Jackson himself. Foiled in one attack, he fell back, to as- 
sume a better position, and make defeat itself the handmaid of 
victory. 



270 CHAPTER XIII. 

On the 26t}i of December, he offered in the Senate the fol- 
lowing resolutions : 

1. Re solved J ThB,t by dismissing the late Secretary of the 
Treasury, because he would not, contrary to his sense of his 
own duty, remove the money of the United States in deposit 
with the Bank of the United States and its branches, in con- 
formity with the President's opinion, and by appointing his 
successor to effect such removal, which has been done, the 
President has assumed the exercise of a power over the Trea- 
sury of the United States, not granted to him by the Consti- 
tution and laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people. 

2. Resolved J That the reasons assigned by the Secretary of 
the Treasury for the removal of the money of the United 
States, deposited in the Bank of the United States, and its 
branches, communicated to Congress on the third day of 
December, 1833, are unsatisfactory and insufficient. 

These resolutions Mr. Clay enforced in one of the strongest 
arguments of his life. He gave his whole heart to the speech. 
His burning eloquence carried away his audience, and loud 
plaudits from the gallery accompanied and interrupted him. 
These demonstrations of sympathy were of course immediately 
suppressed by the chair, who could not, however, prevent en- 
tirely their recurrence. 

He passed from wit to argument, from satire to denunciation, 
" from lively to severe," with such rapidit}'- that extremes 
seemed to touch, and laughter and indignation almost com- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 271 

mino;led. He put forth the whole variety of his intellect, 
omitting nothing, stinting nothing, exaggsrating nothing. 

His illustrations ware peculiarly felicitous. The civil and 
loving expressions with which Greneral Jackson ej acted Mr. 
Daane — his recusant Secretary of the Treasury — reminded 
him, he said, of one of the most remarkable characters which 
our species has produced: " When Oliver Cromwall was con- 
tending for the mastery in Grreat Britain or Ireland, (I do not 
remember which,) he besieged a certain Catholic town. The 
place made a brave and stout resistance ; but, at length, be- 
ing likely to be taken, the poor Catholics proposed terms of 
capitulation, among which was one stipulating for the tolera- 
tion of their religion. The paper containing the conditions 
being presented to Oliver, he put on his spectacles, and, after 
deliberately examining them, cried out, ' Oh, yes, granted, 
granted, certainly ; but," he added with stern determination, 
" if one of them shall dare be found attending mass, he shall 
be instantly hanged." 

There were many not less apposite than this, and some 
more illustrative of the points he made in his argument. He 
was listened to throughout with profound attention. 

His speech was more argumentative than usual, less rhetori- 
cal. He seemed conscious that the importance of the con- 
troversy required all the skill in dialectics he could boast ; 
and, with that admirable tact in the election of the proper 
style of oration which distinguishes him, he made a sound, 
logical, perspicuous argument ; relieved, occasionally, it is 



272 CHAPTER XIII. 

true, with some ardent declamation, pungent satire, or bril- 
liant fancy. 

But, after all, Mr. Clay's style, whether of thought or 
manner, is not senatorial. It lacks dignity, elevation, gravity. 
His speech is often too colloquial, and even in some of its most 
effective passages, disfigured by provincialisms. He was 
never a scholar ; has never studied those chaste models of 
style, the ancient classics, and, consequently knows, but im- 
perfectly, how grandly to express a grand idea. The House 
of Representatives was the theatre of his greatness and his 
glory : there, his emphatic manner, his fervid eloquence, his 
earnest, though unchastened thought, gained him an admiration 
amounting almost to enthusiasm. Polish of style or accuracy 
of expression, was unnoticed or forgiven, in the abandon of 
feeling which his bold imagery, his vehement denunciation, 
and passionate appeals produced. As a popular speaker, he 
has had hardly an equal, certainly, no superior. 

How different in manner, in thought, and in diction, Mr. 
Calhoun appeared ! The fertile brevity of his expression, his 
power of thought, and the severe simplicity of his manner, 
placed him in violent contrast to his sometime rival. His 
speech had all the terseness of Tacitus, without his obscurity. 
It was illustrated more by axioms than imagery. Yet his 
language was so well-selected, so appropriate, so full of deco- 
rous words, that it required no other ornament. 

He made a great argument on this occasion, saying more in 
two hours than almost anv other Senator in two davs. In the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 273 

beginning, lie defined his position : '' I stand wholly discon- 
nected with the two great political parties now contending for 
ascendancy. My political connections are with that small 
and denounced party, which has voluntarily wholly retired 
from the party strifes of the day, with a view of saving, if 
possible, the liberty and the Constitution of the country, in 
this great crisis of our affairs." 

Alluding to the claim put forward by the friends of the ad- 
ministration, that in the removal of the deposites, it undertook 
to defend and guard the rights of States against the encroach- 
ments of the Federal Government, Mr. Calhoun spoke with 
unwonted energy. " The administration the guardians and 
defenders of the rights of the States ! What shall I call it 
— audacity or hypocrisy ? The authors of the proclamation, 
the guardians and defenders of the rights of the States ! The 
authors of the war messaore ao-ainst a member of this con- 

o o 

federacy — the authors of the ^ bloody bill' — the guardians and 
defenders of the rights of the States ! This a struggle for 
State Rights ! No, sir ; State Rights are no more. The 
struggle is over for the present. The bill of the last session, 
which vested in the government the right of judging of the 
extent of its powers, finally and conclusively, and gave it the 
right of enforcing its judgment by the sword ; destroyed all 
distinction between delegated and reserved rights ; concen- 
trated in the government the entire power of the system, and 
prostrated the States, as poor and helpless corporations, at the 
foot of this sovereignty." 



274 CHAPTER XIII. 

His argument on this occasion was not disfigured by the 
painful abstractions of his usual speech. He held close to 
Ills subject, which he illustrated with great power. The mind 
of the audience followed him throuo-hout. 

o 

Four times the space that measures day and night, did Mr. 
Benton address the Senate. The speech was an able one ; so 
much so, that his audience almost forgave him the want of 
ability to condense it. He left little of financial history or 
operations untouched ; and he commented upon little that he 
did not strengthen. Nor was it, to all minds, the least con- 
siderable merit of the speech that it allowed resting places 
to the attention. The distinguished orator would sometimes 
recapitulate — repeat in a variety of forms his argument — 
during which times the mind could recruit its somewhat ex- 
hausted force, and renew its capacity to apprehend. With 
Mr. Calhoun, on the contrary, there is no respite to the at- 
tention. The mind that would comprehend his argument, 
must listen to each word of his speech. Each sentence is so 
much dependent upon the preceding, that the loss of one 
link breaks the continuity of the argument, and mars the 
whole effect. 

The great excitement prevailing in the country upon the 
removal of the deposites, was no where more intense than in 
the metropolis. Hither resorted persons from all sections of 
the country, most of whom, at this period, were violent par- 
tisans. The Senate-chamber was not saved from the ebulition 
of angry feeling, which exhibited itself sometimes in boiste- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 275 

rous applause of one speaker, and sometimes m nerce con- 
demnation of another. A tumultuous spiiit threatened to 
overawe the Senate. 

This spirit, so derogatory to the character of the Senate, 
and so revolutionary in its tendencies, the Vice-President, 
Mr. A^an Buren, determined to put down. He warned the 
galleries to forbear all expression of opinion concerning matters 
in debate, or persons participating therein. Another viola- 
tion of the respect due the Senate, he said, should be follow- 
ed by the instant clearing of the galleries. To this end, he 
had instructed the officers of the Senate, who would take 
good care his orders were carried out. His determination of 
tone and manner quieted the crowd, who afterwards offered no 
interruption to the proceedings or debates of the Senate. 

A model presiding officer was Mr. Van Buren. The at- 
tentive manner in which he listened, or seemed to listen, 
to each successive speaker, no matter how dull the sub- 
ject, or how stupid the orator, the placidity of his coun- 
tenance, unruffled in the midst of excitement, the modest 
dignity of his deportment, the gentlemanly ease of his address, 
his well-modulated voice and sympathetic smile, extorted ad- 
miration from even an opposing Senate ; while the proper 
firmness he displayed on all occasions, the readiness with which 
he met and repulsed any attack upon privileges or dignity of 
the Chair, the more conspicuous in contrast with the quiet in- 
difference with which he entertained any merely personal 
assault, gained him the good will of all beholders. 



276 CHAPTER xiir. 

He bad served an apprenticeship to his high office by a 
senatorial career of six years, and qualified himself by the 
proper discharge of the duties of one position for the more re- 
sponsible duties of the other. The peculiar delicacy and 
decorum which he had manifested during that term of service, 
in times of high party excitement, and in a decided minority, 
had won him great renown, and seemed to justify the general 
belief that he was intended for a larger sphere of action. 
Always self-controlled, he never uttered a word, direct or by 
inuendo, either from premeditation or in the heat of excite- 
ment, which need have wounded the feelings of a political 
opponent, in open or in secret session. Master of his own 
passions, he soon learnt to command those of other men. 
By study of himself, he acquired a knowledge of mankind. 
With a countenance always open, and thought always conceal- 
ed, he invited without returning, confidence. Indeed, the 
character the great modern poet gives to one of his heroes 
will serve as an epitome, mutatis mutandis^ of Mr. Yan 
Buren's : 

" He was the mildest-mannered man, 
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat ; 
With such true feelings of the gentleman, 
You rarely could divine his real thought." 



Virginia divided on this question of the removal of the de- 
posites, as she had done on the Force Bill. Rives, now, as 
then, stood by the administration. Tyler contended both 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 277 

times, he said, for tlic Constitution. Rives made, perhaps, 
the strongest argument in defence of the President's policy 
of the whole party. He was logical, candid, profound ; and 
divided opinion even with Mr. Calhoun. As a constitutional 
argument, his effort deserved great praise. No one ever bet- 
ter explained the theory of executive power; strengthening 
his opinion, as he did, with the dicta of Madison, and other 
earliest and most eminent commentators of the Constitu- 
tion. He denied that General Jackson had transcended 
the constitutional limits of his office, in the removal of the 
deposites, and compelled the Opposition to fall back upon the 
impolicy and abruptness of that proceeding. His speech on 
the Force Bill had given a promise of excellence which this 
more than confirmed. 

Nor did his colleague, Mr. Tyler, make an indifferent 
speech. He hauled closer to the wind than usual, and lost 
less time and less power in unnecessary diversions. He spoke 
with much animation and earnestness of manner. " We are 
told," he said, " of the great power of the Bank, sir ; is there 
no danger from power in any other direction ? Are gentlemen 
blind to the power of the President ? In its mildest form it is 
immense ; look into the Blue Book ; count up the number of 
his retainers — of those who live only by his smile, and perish 
by his frown — here are forty thousand public officers of the 
government. The Dukes of Burgundy, who agitated Europe 
in the time of the Henrys of England and the Philips and 

Louises of France, could not count so many. The Earl of 
12* 



278 CHAPTER xiir. 

Warwick, the king-maker of England, had not one fourth so 
many." Power, it is said, corrupts its possessor. Of this, 
the Syrian, who, yet unused to it, replied incredulously and 
indignantly to the prophet, as he predicted the enormities of 
his comino- reign — " Is thy servant a dog, that he should do 
these thino-s .^" is not the sole historical illustration. Little 
did the orator think, on this occasion, while he fulminated 
against the abuse of power by G-eneral Jackson, how soon he 
should be subjected to its dangerous exercise. If he went 
through the ordeal, with less of self-reproach or public op- 
probrium than he whose conduct he so strongly reprobated, 
history will mitigate its damnatory records of gross abuse of 
power with one instance of glorious self-control. 

Mr. Rives' speech on this occasion cost him his seat in 
the Senate. The Legislature of Virginia, with the petty in- 
tolerance that distinguishes the ignorant, " instructed" him 
out of it — the only kind of instruction, perhaps, it was in its 
power to render him. His rebound, however, was greater 
than his fall ; for, soon after, he was called upon by the Presi- 
dent, to exert, for the benefit of his country, in an eminent 
position abroad, those rare qualities which the ingratitude of 
his State would not suffer him to display in a subordinate posi- 
tion at home. He avenged himself upon his State, which 
refused his service, by enhancing the glory of her name, and 
promoting the prosperity of the country, which, on her ostra- 
cism, had adopted him. 

Much agitation, all the while the debate was going on, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 279 

excited the mind of General Jackson. As reports of speeches 
were daily made to him, he betrayed more or less emotion 
according to their character. He spoke in terms somewhat 
objurgatory of 3Ir. Clay's speech ; of Mr. Calhoun's, in terms 
decidedly so. In truth, a reservation of his sentiments was 
not a common fault with General Jackson, It might rather 
have been complained, that the language in which he gave 
th?m utterance was sometimes too strong, too vehement, too 
personal. It was illustrated with expressions that had been 
better omitted. " Our army swore terribly in Flanders ;" 
and it is not to be disguised, that General Jackson transferred 
to civil life the habit he acquired in camps, of too energetic 
epithets. It was, however, only in moments of great excite- 
ment, when reason is, as it were, for a time in abeyance, that 
he indulged in a habit so reprehensible in a gentleman, so un- 
becoming, and, from example, so pernicious, in the highest 
officer of the government. 

But for Mr. Calhoun, General Jackson, at this time, en- 
tertained a theological hatred. Ordinary language, he feared, 
could not give it adequate revelation. It must be character- 
ized he thought, by language no less decided than itself. It 
could not find vent in hostile action, or he would have gratified 
it otherwise than in words. Words were the only outlet to 
his anger, and he selected the most expressive. 

General Jackson felt a stronger personal interest in this 
debate than in the debate upon the Force Bill. In that more 
important interests were agitated, but none to afiect him per- 



280 CHAPTER xiir. 

sonally so near. The defeat of his recommendations on that 
occasion, would, undoubtedly, very materially, have weakened 
the moral force of his administration, if it had not destroyed 
it wholly ; but the personal consequences might not have been 
so disastrous as they threatened to be in this. The responsi- 
bility of his action, on that occasion, was shared by his cabi- 
net, by the larger portion of his own party, and by the almost 
unanimous strength of the Opposition, and applauded by the 
country generally. Had he failed of success, the sympathy in 
his favor would, in a very short period, have even added to 
his already formidable popularity, and temporary discomfiture 
been succeeded by permanent and almost illimitable power. 

But the removal of the deposites he had assumed as his 
own act. He had relieved, by open proclamation, his cabinet 
from any participation in it. It was an act, he well knew, 
which many of his friends hesitated to defend, while it ren- 
dered a fierce opposition still fiercer. Nor was the country 
generally, he could not but feel, as on the former occasion, 
disposed to warmly concur in his action. A panic seized the 
financial and commercial interests, and affected, indeed, more 
or less disastrously, every class of the community ; a panic 
encouraged and exaggerated by the retaliatory measures of 
the Bank, so that an entire stagnation of all trade and opera- 
tions seemed inevitable. 

The passage of these resolutions by the Senate of the United 
States, a majority of whom were his former political friends, 
could not, he thought, but prove injurious to his adjuinistration. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 281 

It would be the first check, of any important character, it had 
ever encountered, since its commencement. The act would 
go forth to the world as a grave, authoritative, official condem- 
nation of his conduct. It would lessen the magic influence 
of his name, in destroying the belief in its invincibility, and 
might draw after it consequences alike disastrous to his ad- 
ministration and the party. To prevent the passage of the 
resolutions, therefore, was his first hope ; and, foiling in that, 
the next was, to give them such a character and intent, as to 
render them incapable of injury to himself, with the country. 

From the Nullifiers, or State Rights party, in the Senate, 
General Jackson looked for no support. He knew there were 
no harsher enemies than warm friends alienated ; and his for- 
mer intimacy with that party prepared him for its vindictive 
opposition now. But there were in the Senate three or four 
of no determined purpose, whose action awaited the superior 
argument, or most conclusive reasons, of one side or the other. 
With as much integrity as the rest of the Senate, they had 
not been able to come to so early conclusion in regard to the 
policy of censuring General Jackson's proceedings. Their 
votes would decide the contest, and consequently there was 
an eager struggle on both sides to obtain them. 

Mr. Clay's resolution of censure originally read : Resolved., 
That by dismissing the late Secretary of the Treasury, be- 
cause he would not, contrary to his sense of his own duty, 
remove the money of the United States, in deposit with the 
Bank of the United States and its branches, in conformity 



282 CHAPTER XIII. 

with the President's opinion ; and bj appointing his successor 
to effect such removal, which has been done, the President 
has assumed the exercise of a power over the Treasury of the 
United States not granted to him by the Constitution and 
laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people." 

This resolution specified certain acts of the President, 
which it denounced as a violation of the Constitution and 
laws. The particular conclusion of fact or law, which in- 
duced any Senator to vote for it, would appear from the very 
terms of the resolution. 

The mover of the resolution, discovered during the debate, 
and particularly after the arguments of Mr. Rives and Mr. 
Forsyth, that, unless modified, it would probably fail — the 
moderates decKning to vote for it. He therefore modified it, 
as follows : 

" Resolved — That in taking upon himself the responsibility 
of removing the deposites of the public money from the Bank 
of the United States, the President of the United States has 
assumed the exercise of a power over the Treasury of the 
United States, not granted to him by the Constitution and 
laws, and dangerous to the liberties of the people." 

This resolution, thus amended, he offered to the Senate to- 
wards the close of the debate. It still did not satisfy the 
scrupulous party, who held the balance of power between the 
two extremes. The able and legal argument of Mr. 
Wright, of New York, the last that was made on the side of 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 283 

the friends of the adinmistratioiij threatened to secure the re- 
jection of the resolution, even in its amended form. 

The politic leader of the opposition, always fidl of re- 
sources, and always ready to concede to tender consciences 
"whatever would not interfere with the prospect of triumph, 
again modified his resolution, making it read thus : 

'' Resolved — That the President, in the late executive pro- 
ceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon 
himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution 
and laws, but in derogation of both." 

The character of these changes was important. The first 
omitted the specification on which the general charge against 
the President of havina; violated the Constitution and laws 
depended, but still retained the clause that accused him of 
conduct " dangerous to the liberties of the people." The 
second change not only omitted the specification, but the im- 
peaching clause — " dangerous to the liberties of the people" — 
besides. These chansres were decisive of the vote. The re- 
solution of censure finally passed on the 28th of March, 1834, 
by a vote of twenty-sis to twenty ; eight of the twenty-six 
havinsr been orio;inal Jackson-men. 

The other resolution of Mr. Clay, declaring the reasons as- 
signed by the Secretary of the Treasury for the removal of 
the deposites insufficient, passed by a vote of twenty-eight to 
eighteen. 

In the acrimonious debate upon this occasion, Mr. Webster 
took no part. He could not approve the act of the President 



284 CHAPTER xiir. 

in removing the deposites, yet would not join those who seized 
this opportunity of making a personal attack upon him. He 
could not but recollect that a few short months before, the 
President and himself were upon terms of cordiality — that 
they had reciprocated mutual kindnesses ; and he was not pre- 
pared so early to forego such grateful reminiscences, and 
adopt, instead of friendly courtesies, the language of denunci- 
ation and menace. To others, he left the invidious task of 
impunging the motives and arraigning the character of General 
Jackson ; — for himself, he was content to record a silent and 
respectful dissent to this measure of his administration. 

But the passage of Mr. Clay's resolutions exasperated 
rather than allayed the division between the Executive and 
Senate. To the vote of censure passed upon his act by the 
Senate, Gen. Jackson sent to that body, on the 17th April, 
1834, his memorable Protest. The resolution of the Senate, 
he said, was in substance an impeachment of the President ; 
and, in its passage, amounted to a declaration, by the ma- 
jority of the Senate, that he was guilty of an impeachable 
offence. As such it was spread upon the journals of the 
Senate — published to the nation and the world, — made part 
of our enduring archives — and incorporated in the history of 
the age. 

The Constitution makes the House of Representatives the 
exclusive judges, in the first instance, of the question, whether 
the President has committed an impeachable offence. But, 
according to the argument of the President, a majority of the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 285 

Senate, whose interference with this preliminary question 
had been studiously excluded, anticipated the action of the 
House of Representatives, and not only assumed the function 
that belongs exclusively to that body, but converted them- 
selves into accusers, witnesses, counsel and judges. 

The argument of the Protest was most ingenious, and highly 
creditable to its distinguished author. He defended, with 
great force of logic, two positions: 1st. That the Executive, 
under the constitution and the laws, was the sole custodian of 
the public funds ; and 2dly, that even on the supposition the 
President had assumed an illegal power in the removal of the 
deposites, the Senate had no right, by resolution, in that or 
any other case, to express disapprobation of the President's 
conduct. He was amenable to the action of neither House 
of Congress, unless by the constitutional method of impeach- 
ment. 

The introduction of the Protest into the Senate opened wide 
again the flood-gates of debate. All who had spoken before 
plunged in now, and some with greater vehemence. The ex- 
citement in the Senate was intense, and occasionally irrepres- 
sible. Mr. Leigh, of Va., concluding a S23eech, with a glow- 
ing encomium upon Mr. Clay for his services in getting 
through the tariiF compromise act of 1833, " brought down" 
the galleries. The cheering and mingled hisses were so vio- 
lent, that the Vice-President ordered the galleries to be 
cleared ; and while the sergeant-at-arms was proceeding in 
the execution of the order, the noise and disturbance became 



286 CHAPTER XIII. 

yet more outrageous. Some names were vociferated, with 
tumultuous approbation — others, with as vehement vitupera- 
tion ; and, amono* the hitter, the name of the President. This 
escited the indignation of Col. Benton, who moved that " the 
Bank-ruffians" that had committed the outrage should be 
taken into custody, accompanying his motion with remarks 
emphatically condemnatory of the rioters. Mr. Moore, of 
Ala., thought the motion unnecessary, as it could not be 
carried out. The whole gallery must be arrested, or no one — 
for it was impossible to distinguish, amid so much confusion, 
the innocent from the guilty. But Mr. Benton, with some 
warmth, insisted on his motion, upon which he demanded the 
ayes and noes ; and they were ordered accordingly. 

Mr. Clayton, as soon as he could make himself heard be- 
yond the noise on the floor as well as in the galleries, regretted 
the motion |iad been made, but since it had been, he should 
vote ao-ainst it. He did not reirard the disturbance as an in- 
tended contempt of the Senate, but only as an indiscreet ex- 
pression of public opinion. 

Mr. Benton replied, that the terms in which he expressed 
his motion were so distinct as not to be misunderstood. He 
would not be misunderstood. He did not move to take into 
custody those, who, in an unguarded moment, had applauded 
the sentiments of the Senator from Virginia, but those, who, 
long after the gentleman had taken his seat, had continued to 
outrage and insult the Senate. 

While motions were made to adjourn, and to lay CoL 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 287 

Benton's motion on the table, the chair pronouncing them 
severally out of order, the galleries became cleared. The 
Senate then assumed a more pacific aspect, and order was 
recovered. Mr. Benton withdrew his motion, because the 
galleries being all cleared, he said, there was no one upon whom 
it could operate. 

While the debate maintained a personal character, and 
seemed used but as an opportunity for the display of angry 
feeling on either side, Mr. Webster continued silent. His 
object was to discourage, not to foment, prejudices — to miti- 
gate and not to exasperate passions already dangerously ex- 
cited ; and it was not till men's minds had been brought, 
mostly by his example and remonstrance, to a temperature 
susceptible of dispassionate argument, that he arose to address 
the Senate. 

In his exordium, he spoke of the President in the language 
of respect — from which he did not deviate in any part of his 
argument : " Unhappily, sir, the Senate finds itself involved 
in a controversy with the President of the United States ; 
a man who has rendered most distinguished services to his 
country, has hitherto possessed a degree of popular favor per- 
haps never excelled, and whose honesty of motive and integrity 
of purpose are still maintained by those who admit that his 
administration has fallen into lamentable errors." 

Thus, while persons, once his friends, were assailing Gen. 
Jackson's motives and ferociously denouncing his policy, Mr. 
Wesbster, never other than his political opponent, always 



2S8 CHAPTER xiir. 

conceded the honesty of his intentions even when compelled 
hy his convictions to oppose his measures. 

The Senate — he said in this speech — regarded the direct 
interposition of the President in the removal of the deposites/ 
as an interference with the legislative disposition of the public 
treasure. Every encroachment, great or small, was important 
enouo-h to awaken the attention of those who were intrusted 

CD 

with the preservation of a Constitutional Government. It 
was in this relation that he expressed his thoughts in sentences 
that have been pronounced some of the most beautiful and 
energetic, in any of his works. Speaking of the resistance 
made by our ancestors to the assertion of the right of Parlia- 
ment to tax them, he said : "It was against the recital of an 
act of Parliament, rather than any suffering under its enact- 
ments, that they took ujd arms. They went to war against a 
preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. 
They poured out their treasures and. their blood like water, in 
a contest in opposition to an assertion which those less sa- 
gacious, and not so well schooled in the principles of civil 
liberty, would have regarded as barren phraseology, or mere 
parade of words. They saw in the claim of the British Par- 
liament a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust 
power ; they detected it, dragged it forth from underneath its 
plausible disguises, struck at it ; nor did it elude their steady 
eye, or their well directed blow, till they had extirpated and 
destroyed it to the smallest fibre. On this question of prin- 
ciple, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised their 



^ 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 289 

flag against a power, to which, for purposes of foreign con- 
L quest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is 
r not to be compared — a power which has dotted over the sur- 
face of the whole globe with her possessions and miUtary posts, 
4 \^hose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping 
company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one con- 
tinuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." 
In reply to the claim of the President, that the Executive 
had the sole control of the public funds, Mr. Webster said in 
his argument : " Mr. President, the Executive claim of power 
is exactly this, that the President may keep the money of the 
public in whatever banks he chooses, on whatever terms he 
chooses, and to apply the sums which those banks are willing 
to pay for its use to whatever purposes he chooses. These 
sums are not to come into the general treasury. They are to 
be appropriated before they get there ; they are never to be 
brought under the control of Congress ; they are to be paid 
to officers and agents not known to the law, not nominated to 
the Senate, and responsible to nobody but the Executive itself. 
I ask gentlemen if all this be lawful ? Are they prepared to 
defend it .? Will they stand up and justify it ? In my opin- 
ion, sir, it is a clear and most dangerous assumption of power. 
It is the creation of office without law ; the appointment to 
office without consulting the Senate ; the establishment of a 
salary without law ; and the payment of that salary out of a 
fund which itself is derived from the use of the public 

treasures." 

13 



290 CHAPTER xiir. 

In truth, tlie argument of Mr. "Webster on this point con- 
cludes the question ; and leaves the act of the President to 
the defensive plea of necessity — a necessity clear, cogent, and 
imperative ; that admitted of no delay, and tolerated no alter- 
native. It was upon this ground alone that his friends finally 
defended it ; and upon this alone will it generally be held 
defensible by posterity. 

The other argument of the Protest that the Senate had no 
right to express disapprobation of the President's conduct, 
Mr. Webster combatted, with brief but emphatic logic. " We 
nqed not look far," he said, "nor look deep, for the founda- 
tion of this right in the Senate. It is clearly visible and 
close at hand. In the first place, it is the right of self- 
defence. In the second place, it is a right founded on the 
duty of representative bodies, in a free government, to defend 
the public liberty against encroachment. We must presume 
that the Senate honestly entertained the opinion expressed in 
the resolution of the 28th of March ; and, entertaining that 
opinion, its right to express it is but a necessary consequence 
of its right to defend its own constitutional authority, as one 
branch of the Government. This is its clear right, and this, 
too, is its imperative duty. 

j£. ^f. ^£> M. 4e> ^u 

TT TT "TV* Tr Tr -ff 

The Senate has acted not in its judicial, but in its legisla- 
tive capacity. As a legislative body, it has defended its own 
just authority, and the authority of the other branch of the 
Legislature. Whatever attacks our own rights or privileges, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 291 

or whatever encroaches on the power of both Houses, we may 
oppose and resist, by declaration, resolution, or other similar 
proceedings. If we look to the books of precedents, if we 
examine the journals of legislative bodies, we find everywhere 
instances of such proceedings." 

The speech on the Protest, received a no less distinguished 
and ardent reception in the country generally, than the 
speeches in reply to Hayne, and on the Force Bill. Equally 
with these, it responded to the dominant sentiment of the 
people. Persons of all political opinions, and of various pur- 
suits, addressed Mr. Webster thanks for the effort. Some of 
the most eminent jurists and statesmen of the nation proferred 
him their warmest approbation ; — among whom were Chan- 
cellor Kent of New York, and Littleton W. Tazewell of 
Virginia^ differing on most subjects of constitutional law, 
they agreed fully upon this* " I had just finished," writes 
Chancellor Kent to Mr. Webster some days after the speech 
was delivered, " the rapturous perusal of your speech on the 
Protest as appearing in the Intelligencer of Saturday, when I 
had the pleasure of receiving it from you in a pamphlet form. 
I never had a greater treat than the reading of that speech 
this morning. You never equalled this effort. It surpasses 
everything in logic — in simplicity and beauty and energy of 
diction — in clearness — in rebuke — in sarcasm — in patriotic 
and glowing feelings — in just and profound constitutional 
yiews — in critical severity and matchless strength. It is worth 
millions to our liberties." 



292 CHAPTER XIII. 

And Gov. Tazewell, writing to Mr. Tyler says : " Tell 
"Webster from me that I have read his speech in the National 
Intelligencer, with more pleasure than any I have lately seen. 
If the approbation of it by one who has not been used to 
coincide with him in opinion can be grateful to him, he has 
mine in exte7iso. I agree with him perfectly, and thank him 
cordially for his many excellent illustrations of what I always 
thought. If it is published in pamplet form, beg him to 
send me one. I will have it bound in good Russia leather, 
and will leave it as a special legacy to my children." 

That the merits of this speech as a constitutional argument 
should have been so earnestly impressed upon two persons of 
such distinguished and yet diverse opinions in relation to con- 
stitutional questions, is no ordinary proof of its profound 
truthfulness. For while sophistry presents many phases, and 
is viewed in various and changeful light, truth, to the thought- 
ful and sagacious, has but one aspect, and is immutable. The 
argument on the Protest, as the exposition of sound, patent, 
constitutional doctrine, has its equal nowhere — not even in 
any previous or subsequent effort of Mr. Webster himself. 

These three great speeches of Mr. Webster, — the Reply to 
Hayne, the speech on the Force Bill, and upon the Protest — 
are, most undoubtedly, the best exposition of constitutional 
law ever given to the country. They constitute a chart of 
government. And, as in the ancient days of Rome, the 
magistrates, whenever danger pressed the eternal city, con- 
sulted the Sybilline Books, to know what measures of safety 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 293 

to pursue, so, under our government, witli us, and with 
posterity, these inspired productions of his great mind, in 
time of peril to the Constitution and the Union, will ever be 
resorted to as the only hope or means of preservation. By 
their saving guidance, the Constitution and the Union, 
" one and inseparable," may survive every storm, and ride 
victorious through every gale. 

Attachment to the Union of the States has amounted with 
Mr. "Webster to a passion. It was his earliest love and will 
endure to his latest breath. In whatever situation he has 
been placed, it has filled his heart and controlled his conduct. 
He was made everything, in public life, subsidiary to this. 
It has grown with his growth, and strengthened with his 
strength, till it has become a part of his moral being. 

The past is security for the future — no matter how much 
his motives may be arraigned, his conduct vilified, or his per- 
sonal feelings outraged, he will maintain, steadfast and un- 
shaken, his devotion to the Constitution and the Union. He 
will neither forego nor qualify that ardent devotion, at the 
instigation of angry clamor, or be diverted a hair's-breadth 
from his consistent course, by the frowns or smiles of power, 
whether centered in one man or the million. He knows no 
change. He takes no step backwards, whatever denunciation 
or whatever blandishments surround him, he will be true, 
whoever else is faithless. As well might we expect the 
North Star, — in all time, that unsubsidized guide to the 
mariner, — to withhold his light and refuse to shine, because 



294 CHAPTER XIII. 

the needle, with fickle polarity, inclines to some other 
luminary. 

" I am," he says now as he said before, "where I have 
ever been, and ever mean to be. Standing on the platform 
of the general Constitution — a platform, broad enough, and 
firm enough, to uphold every interest of the whole country — 
I shall still be found. Intrusted with some part in the ad- 
ministration of that Constitution, I intend to act in its spirit 
and in the spirit of those who framed it. I would act as if 
our fathers who formed it for us, and who bequeathed it to 
us, were looking on me — as if I could see their venerable 
forms bending down to behold us from the abodes above. 
I would act too as if the eye of posterity was gazing on me. 
"Standing thus, as in the full gaze of our ancestors and our 
posterity, having received this inheritance from the former, to 
be transmitted to the latter, and feeling that, if I am formed 
for any good, in my day and generation, it is for the good of 
the whole country, no local policy or local feeling, no tempo- 
rary impulse, shall induce me to yield my foothold on the 
Constitution and the Union. 

" I came into jDublic life in the service of the United States. 
On that broad altar, my earliest, and all my public vows, 
have been made, I propose to serve no other master. So 
far as dei^ends on any agency of mine, they shall continue 
United States ; united in interest and aifection ; united in 
everything in regard to which the Constitution has decreed 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 295 

their union ; united in war, for the common defence, the 
common renown, and the common glory ; and united, com- 
pacted, knit firmly together in peace, for the common pros- 
perity and happiness of ourselves and our children." 



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